It seems like people are still missing the point. Lets just say CR merely 'delays' a cancer for 1-5 yearrs. Now back in the middle of the 20th century this might not given much hope because the rate of technological and medical improvements were still pretty slow, cancer treatments were not so good, and the chances of a 'cure' or major breakthrough was less likely to happen in a 5 year time frame in the 1950's, than what could happen from 2009-2014. Or any other time frame beyond this.
So doing CR is the most important thing you can do right now to ensure that if you are genetically unlucky, you might be able to at least delay death from most causes. Thus if you were to survive another year than you would have if you weren't on CR, and you were at age 50, this could buy you another few years or decades of life to achieve dramatically extended lifespan via real rejuvenation therapies. And not to mention you want to be in the best possible health and shape for when the first round of therapies become available. Being your typical 80 year old might not be well, but if you're 80 and function like a 50 year old... then this is far better and probably be more easily tolerated.
The fact there was a cluster of deaths from my school alone is not the point I was trying to make. I was making the point to all age groups here. Don't think it will never happen to you just because you eat healthy or pop your pills. I never dreamed I would have developed an apparently rare side effect with damage to my peripheral nervous system, CNS, and tendons from cipro. But it happened. CR might have gave me a false sense of security because it's so damn effective at preventing neurotoxicity and oxidative stress. Well no, it still happened and it could have been much worse. I was lucky the whole mess resolved mostly.
It's clear that most people here are pretty healthy, they typically improve their chances by eaitng a healthy diet and taking various supplements. This could buy them a few years, and I have no doubt that the avoidance of risky behaviours such as smoking and excessive alcohol drinking among other things also play a role in helping to ensure you live to see the day when we can rejuvenate the body. But CR and not anything else (excluding genetic interventions) has been shown to dramatically increase in maximum lifespan of almost all organisms tested. Supplement fail to work, time after time.
I think for any life extensionist, if you're serious about wanting to live longer, using the best tool we have right now is the best bet you can make.
I hope my points are clear now.
Edited by Matt, 01 February 2009 - 04:56 AM.