6 replies to this topic

[manofsan]

Here's just a little blurb on Popular Science:

http://www.popsci.co...13615-5,00.html

I've been reading about various experiments attempting to grow teeth using stem cells, etc, and I think that's one of the things that would top my wishlist for making old age more palatable, along with better joints and reasonable bowel function.

[Jay the Avenger]

Oh my God, how I long for an update to my digestive system!

Right now, I've got a fungus in my intestinal track, called Candida Albicans. I think I've carried this thing around for years. I'm so tired of not being able to shit a solid turd, to put it bluntly.

I would sure love to have a digestive system that can take on rubber tires without giving me any trouble whatsoever. I want to be able to eat whatever I like, enjoying the satisfactory bit of eating, but not having to suffer from the negative consequences of fatty and sweet foodstuffs.

Everybody deserves to have something goody (whether it be a Cornetto icecream, a pack of donuts, a bag of chips, or half a liter of luxuruous coffee...) at the end of each hard working day, damnit! I'm sick and tired of having to feed my body the stuff it needs. I'd rather stuff myself with stuff that my tastebuds say is good for me.

But the digestive system is quite complex, so I fear it will take quite a while before we get to see technology that will be able to do this. Unless, ofcourse, those drugs that Kurzweil talks about (eat anything, yet remain perfectly slim, and also enjoy some of the profits of calorie restriction) will actually appear in a few years.

[manofsan]

Gee, I really feel for ya -- I wonder if it wouldn't be simpler for us to re-wire our tastebuds to like the stuff that we currently don't find so tasty and yet which also happen to be healthy for us. But in a way, that sounds like depriving us of our natural human desires...

[Jay the Avenger]

Yeah... sometimes I wish I could dig veggies as much as I do french fries.

Don't feel too sorry, though. The meds I'm on are working. I'll surely get rid of that frigging fungus.

[manofsan]

Another article on a project to grow teeth from stem cells:

http://news.bbc.co.u...lth/3679313.stm

The company is named Odontis, and has grants from the genomic bigwigs Wellcome and Nat'l Endowment for Science

BBC sounds upbeat, saying this could be 'soon'
Hopefully, they'll be right

[Mind]

Yeah... sometimes I wish I could dig veggies as much as I do french fries.

What I have found is I can train my taste buds. I forced myself to change over to a diet of mostly veggies and protein. After about a month, my taste buds came around a bit and my body also adjusted to the better diet. I still enjoy the "sin" foods about once a week (pizza, fries, bbq ribs) but my body "does not allow" me to over-indulge... it is too used to the good diet. It seems to reject over-eating the bad foods.

[manofsan]

Wow, they're quoting 5 years as a timeframe in this article:

http://www.medicalne...php?newsid=7922

Gee, I hope it's not all overly optimistic. If even just this one stem cell application alone takes off, then it will generate so much demand that it will probably inject the
whole of stem cell research with lots of money.

Like I said, start off with the peripheral stuff -- younger skin, new teeth, new joints -- and leave the hard stuff like growing new spleens for later. Because there are a lot more people who are interested in chewing and looking younger, than in getting a new spleen.