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[manofsan]

Now this is one to look at:

http://www.newscient...le.ns?id=dn7555

Women who are able to bear children beyond age 45 are able to do so because of better self-repair mechanisms in their bodies.

And why should this not be the case? I once made an argument that to develop a longer-lived mouse or even monkey, one could simply use a brute-force method of breeding many generations of animal under conditions of delayed breeding. That way only the ones who have the better anti-ageing traits will be passing on their genes.

So is longevity of fertility an indicator to longevity of lifespan? If you're fertile to an older age compared to others, can you be confident of living to a significantly older age compared to others?

Now the next thing is - can we find some demographic group whose behavioral practices are associated with childbearing into later years? There are cultures (and species) which are known to have children later in life as compared to others. Should we not seek out these groups for study, in order to discover usefully superior anti-ageing traits/mechanisms from them?

Methuselah Mommy Prize, anyone?

Comments?

[manofsan]

Hey DNAmechanic, since you work with drosophila flies, can you tell me if such a study is practical to conduct on flies?

Are you able to selectively breed flies for longer-lasting fertility, and then check to see the effect on their overall lifespans and age-related decline? Is fertility the key manipulation point for anti-ageing? Is fertility the key marker? If you have robust fertility, do you automatically have robust health?