
Blood of world's oldest woman hints at limits of life - happyscrappy
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25458-blood-of-worlds-oldest-woman-hints-at-limits-of-life.html#.U1kP70BOUoD
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exratione
For my money the nuclear DNA damage angle is actually the more interesting
part of this. The research community has for some years been debating whether
or not stochastic nuclear DNA damage is important in aging outside of the
issue of cancer. The consensus educated assumption has long been to think of
course, nuclear DNA damage should lead to loss of protein homeostasis, and is
therefore a meaningful contributing cause of aging, not just of raised risk of
cancer. However there is nowadays plenty of evidence to support the opposite
view, that the levels of stochastic nuclear mutations seen in human tissues
really don't matter over the present human life span. Other than cancer.

This would be good if it continues to hold up. The less we have to fix in
order to produce a first generation of treatments that effectively treat aging
- i.e. produce rejuvenation - the better. Fixing nuclear DNA damage is going
to be plausible via global DNA editing technologies like CRISPR, but we're a
long way from doing it for all genes to restore to a template and erase
damage. Cancer therapies on the other hand are going to improve enormously in
the near future as forms of narrowly targeted cell destruction take over from
the present standards of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, coupled with greatly
improved early detection. If you're 20-40 years away from peak cancer age in a
wealthy region of the world, then I don't think your odds of dying from cancer
are very large at all.

~~~
sspiff
You say this as if rejuvenation would be a good thing.

Rejuvenation would further divide the poor from the rich, as the poor are
unable to afford such treatment. Wealthy dynasties would continue to acquire
wealth (because wealth builds more wealth), while one of the current
rebalancing mechanisms (people dying without heirs) would be significantly
reduced or even completely disappear.

Furthermore, we'd have even more competition over the limited amount of
resources and habitable land than we have today.

Let's just hope we figure out that space thing before they ever figure out
rejuvenation.

~~~
exratione
There is something about the prospect of treating aging that makes people take
leave of all economic common sense.

Move your argument to 1940 and make it about the prospect for future
treatments for heart disease to see how ridiculous it is to suggest that only
the wealthy would have access to these medical technologies.

One of the interesting things about our age is that medicine is largely flat.
Rich people can buy more time from more expensive physicians, and pay people
to do their legwork and phone calls for them, and lie in pain in better-
looking ward rooms, but there are very, very few forms of medical technology
available to them that is unavailable to someone with a few tens of thousands
of dollars and the time to make the phone calls and do the legwork.

Given that the treatments for human rejuvenation will be infusions (made up in
a lab-factory in bulk, or a specialist clinical plant to order, and requiring
very little attention from trained staff to administer) rather than surgeries
(requiring a great deal of time from specialist staff to carry out), I think
that the odds of their remaining expensive for long are minimal. Economies of
scale emerge rapidly for such things.

(Infusions because these treatments will be things like delivery of engineered
bacterial enzymes, gene therapies for mitochondrial DNA, drugs to break down
cross-linked proteins, stem cell transplants, and so forth).

Look at stem cell transplants as the model of how the price of such therapies
rapidly moves downward due to inter-regional competitive pressure for
treatments of this nature.

~~~
coldtea
> _Move your argument to 1940 and make it about the prospect for future
> treatments for heart disease to see how ridiculous it is to suggest that
> only the wealthy would have access to these medical technologies._

Actually only the wealthy have access for heart disease even know. Vast masses
in developing and third world countries don't have access to such treatments.

~~~
leoedin
The grandparent of your comment said:

 _> Wealthy dynasties would continue to acquire wealth (because wealth builds
more wealth), while one of the current rebalancing mechanisms (people dying
without heirs) would be significantly reduced or even completely disappear._

Which means that in the context of this conversation, "wealthy" means the
extremely wealthy members of society (the 1%).

If you define "wealthy" as meaning anyone living in the developed world, then
maybe this is true. In the context of this conversation though, medical
technologies are available to broad swathes of society. In countries with
socialised medical systems, heart disease treatment which is close to the
forefront of medical developments is available to everyone, regardless of
means.

Extreme wealth will buy you better medical treatment, but only marginally. You
can afford more experienced surgeons and the latest machinery and drugs, but
within 5 years that machinery drugs will be widely available.

~~~
Domenic_S
> _the extremely wealthy members of society (the 1%)._

Not to be that guy, but if "society" is defined as "humanity", as it should be
imo when it comes to human health, all of us in first world are the 1%.

Edit: "To make it into the richest 1 percent globally, all you need is an
income of around $34,000, according to World Bank economist Branko Milanovic.
The average family in the United States has more than three times the income
of those living in poverty in America, and nearly 50 times that of the world's
poorest. Many of America's 99 percenters, and the West's, are really 1
percenters on a global level."

[http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/02/27/we_are_all_...](http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/02/27/we_are_all_the_1_percent)

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2082385/We-1--You-
ne...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2082385/We-1--You-
need-34k-income-global-elite--half-worlds-richest-live-U-S.html)

[http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2012/03/01/the-
global-1/](http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2012/03/01/the-global-1/)

[http://www.globalrichlist.com/](http://www.globalrichlist.com/)

~~~
leoedin
You're distorting my meaning and trying to make this conversation thread about
something that it isn't. The thread started with a discussion of healthcare
advances as a means of enabling wealthy family dynasties to grow their wealth
while the rest of us didn't have access to that technology. It was rightly
pointed out that healthcare advances (excluding specialised labour intensive
surgeries) have consistently quickly become available to the majority of
people within a country.

Yes, you can always point out that elsewhere in the world people are living in
extreme poverty. It's tragic, but if you try and skew every debate on
inequality towards this fact you will never get anywhere. It's perfectly
reasonable to have two discussions - one, to discuss the great inequalities of
our global capitalist system, and a second to discuss the relative wealth
equality within individual countries or countries of comparitive wealth. This
comment thread was started as the second type of discussion.

~~~
Domenic_S
Maybe I'm misreading you, but it sounds like you're saying "inequality is only
important insofar as it affects me".

Advances in technology (including healthcare) are usually bankrolled by the
wealthy - wealthy people and corporations. The middle class doesn't pool
together a billion dollars to research drugs for heart disease. University
research is funded by wealthy benefactors, grants (in turn funded by wealthy
benefactors), Government money (funded by taxes, a disproportionate % paid by
the wealthy) and so forth. It seems fair to me that they'd get first dibs.

We're all trying to grow our dynasties, that's why we have kids. It's not
inherently evil.

------
gameshot911
This part caught my interest: "Holstege says the results raise the possibility
of rejuvenating ageing bodies with re-injections of stem cells saved from
birth or early life. These stem cells would be substantially free of mutations
and have full-length telomeres."

Makes me wonder if I should take a blood sample now (age 26) and have it
frozen on the off chance that it would be of use later in life. Basically a
hedge against, 50 years from now, "well we have the amazing rejuvenation
technology that can replenish the fresh blood cells, but only if we have a
sample of 'young' blood. Sorry everyone aged 60+."

~~~
DEinspanjer
Yep. I jumped to the exact same conclusion. I did a quick search to see what
was out there and I came across this article from 2008 talking about a few
such companies and how it was being discounted by many scientists as not
likely to be useful:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/29/health/29stem.html?pagewan...](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/29/health/29stem.html?pagewanted=all)

At least a couple of the companies mentioned in that article appear to be out
of business. The prices quoted back then are non-trivial for middle class
Americans.

It still seems like the sort of thing that might be worth the expense. If they
come up with the solution when I'm 80, but I don't have any source of young
stem cells to rely on...

Same goes doubly for my kids.

~~~
jebus989
This really isn't worth worrying about. I know it seems like a Pascal's wager
scenario but "youth of stem cells" isn't a problem. We know how to lengthen
telomeres (hTERT) and generating human iPSCs is a routine procedure.

------
naterator
Meta: I love that lately there have been more health and biology related
submissions here on HN. Dovetails nicely with YC new shift/interest, and
matches one of my great personal interests.

Do other like this as well, or do people wish that HN would stay focused on
software, VC, and traditional tech? Just curious. Obviously it's getting
upmodded, but still curious to hear if there is another side.

~~~
judah
Technology + medicine = huge advancement for humanity.

This really is a frontier that has yet to come to full fruition. I'm all for
YC/HN spreading into biology and medicine.

Personally, it is an area I'd like to move towards in my own career. I love
web development and technology, but I'd love it more if I could apply it to
medicine in some way, to produce a more tangible benefit to humanity.

------
jostmey
Our body contains literally trillions of cells. It is absurd to think that
among all these cells there will be only a few mutations. Mutations will occur
in all cell types all over the body.

What I find really interesting is that the mortality distribution in
Gompertz's law may be predicted using the Euler-Lotka equation. This says that
the reason we die is because there is an absence of selective pressure for the
individual in a species to live longer (link:
[http://www.genetics.org/content/156/3/927.full.pdf](http://www.genetics.org/content/156/3/927.full.pdf))

~~~
s_baby
>This says that the reason we die is because there is an absence of selective
pressure for the individual in a species to live longer

Or there is a selective pressure making sure organisms don't have indefinite
lifespans. You need death for a constant stream of sexual reproduction.

~~~
Houshalter
The longer an organism lives the more it can reproduce, the more copies of
it's genes there will be. Any gene that increases (reproductive) lifespan is
strongly selected for.

~~~
samatman
Not correct, though intuitive. Consider each offspring to be 50% of the genes
of the parent. A parent with three children is competing with hir own
genetics, and losing.

~~~
Houshalter
Your reasoning makes no sense. If the parent can live longer they can
reproduce more and therefore propagate more of their genes.

~~~
samatman
It does. 150% (more than the parent) of the genes have teamed up with a
foreign 150% of genes against the parent.

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solox3
Older people die from not being able to perform mitosis of vital cells
([http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12573379](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12573379))
-- a decade-old observation. She is just a new, other data point.

------
eyko
Does this mean that donating blood reduces your number of white blood cells,
and hence your life?

~~~
saalweachter
My vague understanding is that your blood stem cells are in your bone marrow.

~~~
nightcracker
Yes, but the article suggests that the amount of blood they can produce is
limited in your lifetime before they burn out.

So the question still stands: does donating blood mean a shorter maximum
lifespan, because you can no longer replenish your own blood cells?

~~~
saalweachter
Hmmm, my guess would be probably not? The internet says that white blood cells
only live 3-4 days. If you donate 1 of your 10 pints of blood every 8 weeks,
and your body actually replaces the white blood cells immediately (instead of
just being down 10% for 3-4 days), you would only be increasing white blood
cell production by about 0.7%.

------
logfromblammo
I wonder if the technology and the knowledge will ever be at the point where
"life hackers" are extracting their own stem cells, applying home-brewed
telomerase, and reinjecting them. It seems like the sort of thing that a
subset of HN folks would do.

~~~
atrus
I would hope not, as simply extending telomeres is a fantastic way to give
yourself cancer.

~~~
logfromblammo
It is my understanding that some forms of cancerous cells extend their own
telomeres, so having stem cells with shorter telomeres is not a defense
against this. In any case, wouldn't the cancer be the result of damage to the
coding DNA or the intercellular environment anyway, and not a function of
telomere length?

The telomeres are there to ensure that the cells with more transcription
errors die first. But in the case of aging, there are no younger cells for
this die-off process to prefer. Given the choice between a certainty of cancer
and cells that cannot even reproduce, some people may roll the dice with
cancer, and hope they can live long enough to overcome that problem as well.

------
grok2
A comment in this article about the "worn-down" telomeres in the lady's white-
blood cells makes me wonder if it would be possible to study the size of
white-blood telomeres in any person relative to their brain cell telomeres and
predict how long someone is likely to live (given no other health problems)...

------
cab_codespring
I wonder if there is a way to save some of your stem cells now, while you are
are younger, just in case the technology is available when you are older.

