Curing aging will will by default cure 95% of disease. Is this true or false? Can curing aging really cure obesity? Obesity is a pretty big cut of disease pie, but how much will it be effected by curing aging?
Obesity, unlike many other things that correlate with aging has different mechanics. Obesity increases the size of our physiology, but not because of aging, it just gets worse with aging as part of the vicious cycle people often like to make fun of, but which for many is as true as the light of day. More fat, more effect on hormones, so once it gets out of control it's difficult to stop it. Only 3% can keep the weight off permanently, and they are probably a group of women who just had babies, are children, or something along those lines. The rest is purely in my opinion nothing more than feel good thinking and people looking for hope or trying to get people to accept what can't be changed so they can move on or just keep going. There are still benefits to lowering your weight, even if you can't stay skinny forever just yet. It will extend your lifespan and healthspan.But as any of us probably know, we can do something about this, we could fix this just the same as we could do something about aging, and it would probably be easier, and chances are alot of us would want it... after all, what is one of the most pressing reasons for wanting to be young again? It's so we can be fit, but who wants to spend all that time and effort on achieving ageless fitness if that fitness is lacking in the weight department? I for one wouldn't simply be satisfied with being young if it didn't also mean that I was fit enough to eat and compete with the best of them.
Now funny language aside, losing weight permanently, or solving the problem permanently isn't about just going on a diet, that's a band-aid and what we're looking for comes with the skinny genes that we all want to wear, b/c when we can't sustain the adipose tissue that pollutes us with the compulsive desire to consume, there won't be as much telling us to eat. We just won't eat as much. We might never accept the idea of calorie restriction as a method of life extension, and we'll still enjoy food, but we'll be satisfied by less. It takes alot less food to sustain 72kg than to sustain 100, 150, or even as much as 300kg. Very rapid weight loss can occur with the morbidly obese just by limiting food intake, but the physiology is still going to make it's demands, and it would take at least 7 years to remodel the ECM to the extent that you're not predisposed to gaining all that weight back.
So what I've been illustrating here, to get back to my initial point, is that we get fat, and then we get fatter because we're fat. So the only way to stop getting fat and start getting skinny, or more simply put, to solve the obesity epidemic once and for all, is to adjust to the modern environment with gene therapy. After all, we're not starving in the wild anymore, food scarcity is a thing of the past and our binge eating is starving kids in Africa. Until we do that, nothing will give you that absolute perfect body you would have had if you had never eaten that forbidden cookie fruit in the garden of eden. There will always be struggle and it will almost always get worse with age if we don't get gene therapy. Though our rejuvenation science will still come in handy for treating post obesity conditions and restoring the metabolic function to a healthy, high performance state. The metabolic end products which cause aging in those who have been obese is much higher. Perhaps lower in density while they are able to sequester it diffusely into more mass, but fat is full of it and it will come back to haunt you. Perhaps Metformin, Acarbose, and Tocotrienols can improve clearance of some of the most damaging parts of it, or at least help you handle it better, but you'll still be dealing with more, so you can't be as fit as someone who isn't obese who is taking these. Though I'll take this opportunity to comment on the effects of Metformin... it will cause low blood sugar, and that will make you hungier. You might eat more when you take it... it may be good for diabetes, but if you don't have it yet, it might accelerate it unless you're taking something to suppress appetite and hormone secretion from fat cells that make you want to eat, and you'll need something pretty strong at that... I'm thinking something along the lines of Vyvanse or pharmaceutical Cocaine if it's available where you are, or anywhere for that matter... I'll reiterate that I'd like to see development of Ecgonine as a cocaine "analogue" with no risk of addiction. I'll also say that Alpha Cyclodextrin products do wonders and should find their place next to the salt and pepper shakers on our kitchen tables. Though while it turns fats into indigestible fiber, you might still get your fix from higher intake of carbs, so it's not a perfect solution... just something to take in the mean time to make life and maintaining fitness a little easier.
I could end this here, or I could go on about all the neurological changes and subclinical mental problems that develop along side obesity, and they are many... it would take me a long time. So I'll just give an example and leave the rest to your imagination.
So anyone who has diabetes or is begrudgingly looking forward to it has heard of diabetic neuropathy. "It damages nerves" as the commercials continue to remind us. But what is less commonly known and no one has had a profit motive to elucidate yet, is that diabetic neuropathy is preceded by depression and lowered cognitive function. The volume of fat signals for more sex and neurosteroids while you're young, so you'll compensate automatically and just place a stress on your regenerative capacities if your sex and neurosteroids aren't already pegged to maximum output by the genetics of higher cognition which makes obesity genetics redundant for having high intelligence. Sure, if you don't have them, getting fatter might make you do better in school if you take the diabetes drugs to fight the ADHD-PI and confusion caused by the high blood sugar and Metformin or Acarbose might increase intelligence by around 6% via higher klotho levels, or much lower if klotho gets too high and it makes your brain too "thick" to "get the signal through." But a slight increase by way of obesity induced dopamine sensitivity won't make you smart enough to be worth it. You could just try harder and work out more often and it would do more for you. So for that matter it may be necessary to make high intelligence genes available to those getting gene therapy for weight loss to compensate. They also increase metabolism and offer some level of protection against obesity and diabetes. Though in the long term, with or without them, you'll always be smarter if you stay fit. The best scientists I know work full time jobs, study for their PhD. etc, and won't go without a high intensity workout for the cognitive benefits it offers after the workout euphoria fades away. They say it results in stress relief, but the stress relief imo is a direct result of cognitive enhancement.
I'd also like to mention some possible gene therapy candidates for those who are interested and want to know what to get behind:
- The American Diabetes Associations myostatin inhibition gene. Children who get this out of necessity for other conditions apparently fair very well and BioViva CEO, Liz Parish has already taken it herself and seen results (though she was pretty skinny anyways). She's the first adult human I know of to have taken it. It looks very promising, especially in combination with the HTRT therapy she got. The combination of the two could counteract the possible side effects of myostatin inhibition. Some are concerned it might lead to injury of tendons and ligaments, but preventing telomere attrition in those populations would prevent that. I'm hoping BioViva does this as a combination therapy. It would be safest this way... though we'll see if those longer telomeres slow down when they reach a certain length or just go out of control. It's easy enough to shorten them... just stress alot and consume certain aqueous fractions of liquid smoke...
- Rs1800497 (C:C) - Intelligence with obesity resistance, lower drug use, just watch out for obsessive behaviors which aren't productive.
- Of course, I don't have this one unfortunately, but if I did, I'd be part of the 12% that were just always skinny... and it's not just out of reach for me right now, it's also out of reach of google... I can't seem to find what it's called. But I want it and I don't remember there being any negatives to having it. I'll have to keep up my search on this one and update this topic a bit later.
