
New longevity drug mimics caloric restriction in mice - sah
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/07/caloric-restric.html
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ajross
This is about resveratrol, which isn't a new drug. It's been in and out of the
news for quite a few years now. The article is a little confusing, but it
seems that the current research has linked it to a mechanism which is also
involved in the "starving mice live longer" phenomenon. That's definitely good
news, scientifically.

But the "wonder drug" theme is a little overstated. There have been _lots_ of
teasingly good results with this drug in mice over the last decade or so, but
we're still waiting for a pharmaceutical to result.

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rms
This article is confused about resveratrol. The important thing is that there
is a super-resveratrol undergoing clinical trials, which they mention at the
end. It's something like 10,000 times stronger than resveratrol.

Resveratrol itself is not economical to take in such high, effective doses.

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ca98am79
This is not true - I have been taking 500mg for a year. 500mg is about
equivalent to the dosage that they have given to mice in similar studies (per
kg).

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xlnt
Aubrey de Grey has argued that caloric restriction can probably only extend
life in humans by ~2 years. The idea is that it's not a percentage of lifespan
that you can gain, but rather a fixed amount of time. He says the data
supports his interpretation, and that it makes sense evolutionarily because
extending lifespan in response to low calories is mostly useful if you can get
through a short famine and get a chance to mate that would have otherwise been
lost. If it's a long famine that's a much harder problem for evolution to
solve and there's no evidence it is solved.

Therefore caloric restriction probably isn't very important. Does anyone know
otherwise?

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gregwebs
Be wary of evolutionary arguments. It is possible to rationalize any current
behavior/biological trait based on a made up evolutionary theory. It is also
easy to forget that the human body is a very imperfect system (and therefore
should be open to hacking).

If he has data, that is another thing, but so far it seems the research really
isn't good enough (on humans) to do anything more than conjecture.

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xlnt
Evolution does not create features by accident. I'm not proposing a trait. I'm
proposing a _lack of a trait_ (built-in long term life extension feature in
humans), which is very different than proposing a trait, and wins by the
default unless someone has an argument to the contrary.

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gregwebs
Traditional evolutionary theory says that features are created at random, but
they are not kept by accident.

I thought you said this was Aubrey's theory, not yours. Perhaps you should
quote him or rephrase. Can you also site how lack of default traits also 'win
by default' in evolutionary theory?

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xlnt
It was Aubrey's theory first. It's also my theory, currently.

You are mistaken about evolution. There are random mutations, but those are
not complex _features_ , they are tiny changes. It takes many mutations to
build up to a major feature.

Example of "lack of trait" winning by default: might humans have the ability
to breath the air on Mars? no. why? there's no reason that feature would have
been created. you don't have to be unsure whether they might or might not;
unless there's an argument on the other side, the "no breathing on mars trait"
wins by default.

