
Peter Thiel: I'm on human growth hormone [video] - foobarqux
http://www.bloomberg.com/video/peter-thiel-i-m-on-the-human-growth-hormone-pill-JMrIsAq6RC~j2soBovyj4w.html
======
exratione
[http://news.stanford.edu/news/2007/january17/med-
hormone-011...](http://news.stanford.edu/news/2007/january17/med-
hormone-011707.html)

"There is certainly no data out there to suggest that giving growth hormone to
an otherwise healthy person will make him or her live longer. We did find,
however, that there was substantial potential for adverse side effects."

[http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fgene.2012.00...](http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fgene.2012.00288/full)

"In laboratory mice, mutations with the greatest, most consistent, and best
documented positive impact on lifespan are those that disrupt growth hormone
(GH) release or actions."

~~~
ixtli
Thank you for posting some sanity in here. There's simply no evidence to
suggest that any of this is reasonable and really seems like a weird sort of
confirmation bias. That is, he has enough money to surround himself with a
certain type of person, and that type of person tells him a certain type of
thing that is assumed to be "privileged" or "cutting edge" in some way and
thus circumvents the requirement of peer review or consensus a critical person
would normally require before eating a bunch of pills.

Tl;dr: There's no such thing as "ahead" of consensus.

------
salimmadjd
Actually there is a natural way to hack your body and increase your HGH by
about 2000% [1] via fasting.

One theory is that when you fast, your body activates the HGH to help burn fat
at faster rate.

I fast between 24-48 hours (didn't do it last month due to being on the road
most of the time) and for the time I did, I could see gaining muscle mass in a
short time (in about of month) in conjunction with doing weights.

[1] [http://anabolicmen.com/increase-hgh-
in-24-hours/](http://anabolicmen.com/increase-hgh-in-24-hours/) (there is a
link to NIH study)

~~~
toomuchtodo
How do you get past the brain fog during that period of time? My understanding
is that your brain requires glucose, and that your liver will convert fat to
glucose if absolutely necessary (such as when you're in ketosis), hence the
"keto flu" transition phase.

~~~
kyllo
Your liver doesn't convert fat to glucose, it converts it to ketone bodies
(such as acetone) which the body can also use for energy instead of glucose.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Whoops! You're right. I had thought I read somewhere the brain requires
another organ to convert ketone bodies to glucose, but it appears its the
liver itself at cannot use ketone bodies:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketone_bodies#Uses_in_the_heart...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketone_bodies#Uses_in_the_heart.2C_brain_and_muscle_.28but_not_the_liver.29)

~~~
kyllo
Yeah, the liver has a separate metabolic pathway for converting non-
carbohydrate organic compounds into glucose at a steady rate to regulate blood
sugar and provide energy to the brain, it's called gluconeogenesis
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluconeogenesis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluconeogenesis)

------
praptak
Wait, what - a pill? Does HGH really absorb from the guts?

I thought the usual way to administer HGH is a subcutaneous injection.

~~~
EC1
You are correct. Orals are not as effective as injected and most orals are
snake oil.

------
fasteo
This reminds me to David Asprey: my coffee will give you unlimited energy ...
Ohh by the way, I am on modafinil and HRT, but it's the coffee that is working
the magic here.

It is very basic not to eat sugar .... Ohh by the way, I am taking some HGH
pills every day

~~~
metanoia
Don't knock it till you try it - the coffee has worked wonders for me.
Coffee+Butter+Coconut Oil = code :)

~~~
lukifer
I'm trying a bulletproof experiment after New Year's. Care to share your
formula/method? The one time I tried Kerrygold in coffee, I didn't like the
taste.

~~~
metanoia
Ingredients:

1tbsp organic extra virgin coconut oil

2tbsp Strauss Family* organic grass fed butter (unsalted)

16oz Sightglass* coffee (from 4tbsp grounds)

*both brands local to the bay area.

blend!

drink!

code!

If you don't like the heavy butter taste adjust the coconut oil quantity up a
little, or maybe brew the coffee a little stronger.

~~~
lukifer
Thanks!

------
zacharynewton
"I'm hopeful that we'll get cancer cured in the next decade"

Not to say that I'm pro-cancer, but I feel like this is a little bit
unreasonable. Cancer is a very complicated problem, and medical research takes
a long time. Personally I think it sounds like Thiel is just trying to get
swole.

~~~
zorpner
I wish I could find where I first heard this quote (I think it may have been
here on HN), but it was something like "Asking a scientist when we'll find a
cure for cancer is like asking a mathematician when we'll find a solution for
equations." I know he was speaking a bit off the cuff, but the idea of a "cure
for cancer" misunderstands the problem domain so fundamentally as to be
incoherent.

~~~
Steko
We're making fairly rapid advances on treating different cancers with the
fairly blunt methods available today. Down the road nanomachines would seem to
offer a fairly straightforward solution to most cancers. Obviously cells don't
live forever but am I missing something that makes cancerous cells resistant
to increasingly miniaturized tools?

~~~
roadnottaken
Yes, you're missing a lot. Your response is basically science fiction. Take a
look at these statistics [1] showing cancer mortality rates over the last few
decades and you'll see that we are not, in fact, making rapid advances on
treating cancer. Far from it. And I don't even know how to respond to your
nanomachines comment. I'm a biochemist who's studied cancer for years, and I
can't even begin to imagine how a nanomachine could be of value for treating
cancer.

[1]
[http://www.cancer.gov/statistics/find](http://www.cancer.gov/statistics/find)

~~~
toomuchtodo
> I'm a biochemist who's studied cancer for years, and I can't even begin to
> imagine how a nanomachine could be of value for treating cancer.

Nanomachinery would possibly be able to identify and remove cancerous cells
from the body more intelligently then the body's immune system (similar to how
evolution has brought us far enough to where we can engineer biology faster
than evolution could).

Problems are either software based, hardware based, or both. This would be
both.

~~~
roadnottaken
That's like saying "a transporter would allow you to instantly teleport an
object from one place to another". You're describing something that has no
basis in existing technology. Currently nanomachines are simple mechanical
devices like gears or wheels. To "identify and remove cancerous cells from the
body more intelligently than the body's immune system" would require
technology that can't even be imagined right now. Nobody can forsee the
distant future, but what you're describing has no basis in scientific reality,
at present.

There are two reasons why cancer is so difficult to treat: (1) cancerous cells
ARE your own cells that are behaving differently, so distinguishing cancerous
cells from non-cancerous cells is very difficult. And (2) cancer cells are
constantly evolving, so even when you do identify such unique features, the
cancer mutates and changes this identifying feature. Decades of research has
been devoted to identifying such "Achilles heels" of cancers that allow them
to be uniquely and sustainably targeted by therapies and the number of
successes can be counted on one hand. We already have technologies that allow
you to identify unique features on cancer cells (e.g. monoclonal antibodies)
and deliver chemotherapeutic drugs just to those cells (e.g. antibody-drug-
conjugates) and they don't work too well.

Cancer is hard and nanomachine research is in its infancy. I can't predict the
future, obviously, but I can guarantee you that people won't be using
nanomachines to treat cancer for the forseeable several decades, if ever.

~~~
toomuchtodo
> Cancer is hard and nanomachine research is in its infancy. I can't predict
> the future, obviously, but I can guarantee you that people won't be using
> nanomachines to treat cancer for the forseeable several decades, if ever.

Want to make a Long Bet [1] on that? Years ago I would've never thought a
private citizen would be delivering cargo to a space station with the goal of
landing on Mars, but here we are. Reality can be unpredictable.

[1] [http://longbets.org/](http://longbets.org/)

~~~
mahyarm
The difference between your unforeseeable future vs. the parent's is you could
see a government doing the same decades ago, which means the technology was
available that many decades ago to a private individual of sufficient
resources.

His unforeseeable future wouldn't be possible because no entity could do it
with sufficient resources and will right now according to him.

------
FD3SA
I enjoy Thiel's incredible optimism, but he does have a tendency to be a
little too devout to a fixed set of controversial ideologies [1].

Jeff Bezos famously said that smart people often change their minds [2]. I
would encourage Thiel to challenge many of his deeply held beliefs about the
history and nature of scientific and technological progress, and empirically
compare our current system with that of the past. Especially if he wants to
see cancer cured (!!!!) in the next decade (!!!!).

Thiel and his colleagues have a unique opportunity to set mankind back on our
path of scientific and technological discovery. But in order to do this, we
have to thoroughly understand the environment and factors which nurture
scientific progress. With NIH and NSF funding in freefall, and corporations
cutting R&D spending across the board, I would argue we are moving in
precisely the wrong direction. Crowdfunding won't cure Cancer, and neither
will startups. These are very hard problems, that take a very long time to
solve.

Round up some VCs and fund a dozen Janelia Farms for the next 20 years. Only
then can we talk about human longevity as a long term goal.

1\.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8337837](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8337837)

2\. [https://signalvnoise.com/posts/3289-some-advice-from-jeff-
be...](https://signalvnoise.com/posts/3289-some-advice-from-jeff-bezos)

------
narrator
Well if I was going to take anything that could possibly extend my life then
I'd take Selegiline[1]. It has a few reported side effect like reversible
transvestic fetishism[2], but, if I were a billionaire, I'm sure I could
handle it ;).

1\.
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7997074](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7997074)

2\.
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12151912](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12151912)

------
brador
Now this is something that needs disruption. Why can't I get a cheap hgh pill?

~~~
shiftpgdn
[http://www.reddit.com/r/darknetmarkets](http://www.reddit.com/r/darknetmarkets)

------
trhway
his ego is definitely on growth hormone :) Amazing times are coming when
billionaires will be able to defeat aging and ultimately death. And with time
such options will trickle down to regular people.

~~~
api
I dunno. He seems pretty modest for a billion-dollar-club VC.

------
dharbin
Is Peter Thiel really gwern in disguise?

~~~
api
The loa known as "gwern" is the result of Peter's first attempt to upload his
consciousness to the matrix. It will play you a mighty dub.

------
revelation
So am I, I just had some milk.

------
beefman
This is after a cut, and it sounds like he thought he was speaking off the
record. They're speaking softly, there are sounds from the production crew or
something, etc.

------
nether
Where can I get it?

------
pmalynin
A bit click-baity and not that HN worthy tbh.

------
uslic001
Not the brightest move. Cancer will not be cured in 10 years.

------
jboggan
Having recently read the Akallabeth [0] this upsets me somewhat.

0 -
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akallab%C3%AAth](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akallab%C3%AAth)

------
k__
Lol, shouldn't he look more swole?

