

Chronic Buckyball Administration Doubles Rat Lifespan - bcowcher
http://extremelongevity.net/2012/04/16/chronic-buckyball-administration-doubles-rat-lifespan/

======
carbocation
Article: [http://extremelongevity.net/wp-
content/uploads/C60-Fullerene...](http://extremelongevity.net/wp-
content/uploads/C60-Fullerene.pdf)

The part getting the attention has to do with longevity; for that part of the
article, data comes from "[t]hree groups of 6 rats".

This was a single experiment in which n=6 rats received the C60 ('buckyball')
composition, n=6 received just the oil, and n=6 received water (which can
cause adverse effects in rats). Interestingly, a protective effect of oil
gavage in some rat strains has apparently been observed before (
<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3591539> ) but that's a bit of a
distraction since the focus is on the C60.

All treatment stopped after a few months when the first control rat died.
Given that the half life is 14h for peritoneal injection of this particular
substance, there should have been nothing left of it after ~70h. How it
continued to affect rat lifespan for several months afterward would require
explanation.

~~~
fleitz
Could be that it's a fluke given the small groups involved.

~~~
polyfractal
Not likely, since statistical tests were performed to ensure that the results
seen were not due to random chance. The sample size they used is actually
pretty large for studies like this.

However, the study is complicated since rats are sensitive to abdominal
gavages and it tends to reduce their lifespan. Similarly, there are studies
that show chronic administration of olive oil increases life span.

So you have a situation where one control (water only) leads to decreased
lifespan and another control (vehicle - olive oil only) tends to increase
lifespan. Neither of these are ideal controls since they are known to affect
the rat.

That said, they did fancy stats and presumably accounted for this fact.

~~~
Symmetry
Those tests for statistical significance aren't very strong in this case. It
might be that the study in question only had a 5% chance of giving this result
by chance, but given that this particular study was selected to our attention
for news-worthiness the actual chance of it being a valid result are far less
than 95%[1]. Also, a sizeable minority of published papers have statistical
errors, even in good journals[2].

[1]<http://xkcd.com/882/> [2]<http://www.economist.com/node/2724226>

~~~
sanxiyn
You are right in general, but the study in question actually claims 99.9%
significance, not 95%. That's pretty strong.

~~~
Symmetry
Ah, thank you for pointing that out. It changes things quite a bit.

------
EvilTerran
I find myself a little sceptical of articles on a website called "extreme
longevity", to be honest...

... also, skimming the linked paper, the largest sample I see is "sixty rats
randomly divided into 10 groups of 6 rats". I'm not sure if that's really
large enough to draw any solid conclusions, and I don't see any P-values for
the lifespan data -- but I freely admit I'm neither any kind of biologist nor
a stats expert, so I may be talking rubbish.

~~~
polyfractal
Well, it was published in a real journal (Biomaterials) with an impact factor
of 7.882. So the research is theoretically peer-reviewed and solid, in that
the paper itself isn't just making things up.

------
reasonattlm
So what might be going on here?

[http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2012/04/a-puzzling-
fuller...](http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2012/04/a-puzzling-fullerene-
study.php)

The average life span of the Wistar rats used is 2-3 years (24 - 36 months).
This was a small study size, but that's no so important in determining whether
you have an actual means of life extension if you can show that any of your
study group lived much longer than usual - but it is important when it comes
to the degree of life extension. If the study group is small, as it is here,
using only a handful of rats, then the size of the effect can be much more
readily distorted by chance. This line in the paper jumped out at me: "Before
C60 administration, the rats were fasted overnight but with access to water."
If they failed to fast the control group, then we're looking at yet another
study that failed to control for calorie restriction, and this is actually
largely an intermittent fasting study - which has certainly been shown to
extend life in rats.

This would explain how the olive oil administration also apparently extended
life significantly...

~~~
sanxiyn
This is not it. Fasting was done for pharmacokinetics study, not for chronic
toxicity study. That two studies were separate is evident from the
description, e.g. rats were acclimated for 7 days for pharmacokinetics study
and 14 days for chronic toxicity study.

~~~
reasonattlm
That is also a plausible reading of the paper. It doesn't look like they go
into any great detail as to the protocol for administration in the longer term
study.

I'm skeptical of significant antioxidant effects in vivo from a naturally
occurring compound given that antioxidants in general haven't done much for
longevity without being heavily designed substances (like SkQ1, for example).
Simply flooding the body with antioxidants is usually slightly worse for
longevity or a null effect - they don't get to the mitochondria where they
might do some good.

More information from the authors would be good. All things considered, I'm
sure we'll be hearing more on this in the years ahead; people will try to
replicate it, the researchers will be grilled on their work, etc.

------
Lost_BiomedE
Be careful when looking at lifespan studies. A huge increase in lifespan vs.
control does not mean much if the control is badly treated and short-lived
compared to max lifespan for that rat strain. Some rats normally live to 42
months. The C60 could be making up for bad conditions without extending max
lifespan. If so, many compounds have been shown to do this. This exact
scenario was the cause of the resveratrol craze.

------
Symmetry
Well, given the title I was expecting to be snorting dismissively, but this
actually does seem interesting and I hope there's followup work. In
particular, the fact that this was a group investigating C60 toxicity makes me
less immediately suspicious of fudging, but then again if their funding were
coming from someone making something with C60 in it they might have
subconsciously treated the C60 rats better.

What I'd really like to see is a duplication with a larger sample size and
some sort of blind setup with the people caring for the rats. And even then,
there are good reasons to expect that this won't carry over to humans, given
that humans already live so long for an animal of our body size.

------
georgecmu
Interesting -- there are plenty of articles on fullerene administration to
rats over the past 10 years [1], but no mention of longevity effects.

[1]:
[http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=fullerene+rats](http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=fullerene+rats)

~~~
tom1985
I just took a look myself and it turns out that there is evidence:
<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17079053>.

The thing is, you can't patent fullerene so it will never ever make a great
deal of money as a supplemental treatment, and so likely won't get that much
attention.

------
pdx
Just discovered that google can convert long series of units.

Say you wanted to do this, at the obvious risk of some undiscovered toxicity,
and say you weigh 200lbs.

At a cost of fullerene-c60 of $592 for 5 grams, at 1.7mg/kg, you're daily dose
costs $18.26
[http://www.google.com/?q=1.7mg%2Fkg+x+200lbs+x+592%2F5+dolla...](http://www.google.com/?q=1.7mg%2Fkg+x+200lbs+x+592%2F5+dollars%2Fg&oq=1.7mg%2Fkg+x+200lbs+x+592%2F5+dollars%2Fg)

Even worse, however, is the olive oil you have to eat each day, with the C60
disolved into it is 39 teaspoons!
[http://www.google.com/?q=1.7+mg/kg+/+0.8+mg/ml+x+200+lbs+to+...](http://www.google.com/?q=1.7+mg/kg+/+0.8+mg/ml+x+200+lbs+to+tsp&pf=p&sclient=psy-
ab&oq=1.7+mg/kg+/+0.8+mg/ml+x+200+lbs+to+tsp)

Which is 4/5ths of a cup of oil per day.

EDIT: I guess they didn't actually get a daily dose.

    
    
        we treated the rats daily only during 7 days and weekly 
        during the ﬁrst two months, then every two weeks until 
        one control rat died.
    

Nor did they get dosed their entire lives, as earlier in the paper, we find
that

    
    
        After ﬁve months of treatment (M15) one rat treated with 
        water only exhibited some palpable tumours in the
        abdomen region. Due to the rapid development of tumours 
        (about 4 cm of diameter) this rat died at M17. As rats
        are known to be sensitive to gavages, we decided to stop 
        the treatment for all rats and to observe their
        behaviour and overall survival.
    

So, it looks like they only treated for 7 months, for the most part, once
every two weeks, and then no further treatment. The treated rats, after only 7
months of treatment, achieved the benefit.

~~~
driverdan
Human dosing is different than animal dosing. It doesn't translate straight
mg/kg.

------
Tim-Boss
Obviously not everything studied in Rat models scales well or is even
effective at all in Humans, but the potential applications of this will surely
raise a few eyebrows!

Interesting to note a daily diet of olive oil increased their average lifespan
by 4 months alone! The Omega-3 fatty acids in it at a guess... but I wonder
what the exact methods of action are for C60!

~~~
hellweaver666
If nothing else, I'm sure the thought of extending the life of their favourite
pet would make a few rat owners happy!

------
sp332
"Buckminsterfullerene" is named after Buckminster Fuller, who popularized
geodesic domes. He had a word commissioned for him, "Dymaxion", and he used it
for lots of his projects: Dymaxion Map
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_map>, Dymaxion House
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_house>, Dymaxion Car
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_Car> .

------
fleitz
This doubles median lifespan, not absolute lifespan, it's still impressive but
would be much more so if it was doubling max lifespan.

edit: Checked the data, interestingly there's a fairly wide range of death in
the non-buckyball population (more than 1 year) but the buckyball population
all died within 3 months, oddly enough none of the groups overlap, the data
looks almost perfect. Will be interesting to see what the results are with
more subjects.

Full Study: [http://extremelongevity.net/wp-
content/uploads/C60-Fullerene...](http://extremelongevity.net/wp-
content/uploads/C60-Fullerene.pdf)

~~~
gus_massa
The median is more robust than the average, and the average that is more
robust than the maximal or minimal.

* One strange case/rat can modify the maximal or minimal a lot (For example, some kill a rat with a gun or you are "lucky" and get a Methuselah rat.)

* A strange event also can modify the average a lot (If someone kill a rat immediately at the beginning of the experiment, the "new" average is approximately (n-1)/n times the "original" average.

* But some unusual problem doesn't modify the median too much. The median changes from the value of a rat to the value of the next/former rat, which is usually very close. But it doesn't matter how small or big the strange case is, the median is essentially fixed between two values, so it is difficult to modify too much.

The real problem is that 6 is a small number and it is difficult to get good
statistical result with only 6 cases.

~~~
sanxiyn
The study is not using median, it is using EML(estimated median lifespan),
which is calculated by Kaplan-Meier estimator. This actually seems to be
standard in lifespan studies.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaplan-Meier_estimator>

------
AznHisoka
When I read headline I thought of those buckyball desk toys. I thought playing
with them would help me live longer.

------
zvrba
Choose a random compound X, feed it to rats and see what happens. Could
somebody explain how does one choose X?

~~~
pyre
Most likely "anyway that is able to obtain grant money."

------
jes5199
Have they done this experiment with any other configurations of carbon?

------
jey
But how much of that effect is explained by the olive oil?

~~~
hesdeadjim
They had a plain olive oil control that increased the lifespan from 22 to 26
months, compared to 42 with the C60 + oil.

~~~
signa11
but, it also sez the following : "They also demonstrated that the compound is
fully absorbed via the GI tract and totally eliminated from the body in 10
hours." so, not sure what _causes_ the increase in life-span. although, the
cryptic "attenuation of age-associated increases in oxidative stress" does
hint at _something_ , probably the _effect_ that this combo causes as it is
moving through the GI tract ?

~~~
Produce
"qwe sdawrqre sdzaamik3432 mkl" -> that's cryptic.

This is not, it's simply a bit vague. If it attenuates age-associated
increases in oxidative stress then it probably has an anti-oxidant effect.
Alternatively, it affects the systems responsible age-related oxidation - in
other words, an indirect anti-oxidant action.

------
frogly
at the risk of sounding strange, is this or anything similar available to buy
anywhere?

~~~
kungfuelmosan
I wonder if this is found in any foods?

~~~
Symmetry
Normal ash does contain some C60, but only in small quantities compared to the
amount of horrible stuff-that-will-kill-you present.

