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Introduction and my views on Death Scape Velocity

germany berlin

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#1 AEVITAS

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  • Location:Berlin, Germany

Posted 04 August 2015 - 10:22 PM


Hello all,

 

I live in Berlin and decided to join this forum as a possible way to break the virtuality and meet some likeminded people. I see that there has already been a meetup last year. Is there mayby something planned for this year that has not yet taken place? :)

And below as introduction a summary or my views and goals about logevity.

My main goal now is to delay aging enough so as to achieve enough death scape velocity (DEV) to be around when technology is good enough to provide negligible senescence.

I would like to briefly describe my understanding about the current branches that are trying to provide means for this goal and if it will be achievable in our life's time.

 

The anti aging science is still at its infancy and much more research is needed to fully understand human metabolism and gene regulation to envision a real cure. That means for the ones currently alive that the first thing we need is a set of advanced reparative techniques that can deal with the damage of aging and keep the body functioning in the meantime.
That's why SENS and Aubrey de Grey make sense to me. My concern is that unless a very exponential technology advancement happens SENS won't be able to make it on time either. As far as I know the most advanced technique in the pipeline are the 7-keto cholesterol dissolving enzymes and the rest are still pure speculation.

 

From the interventions that we can already apply the first would be to trigger the body's inbuilt hormesis mechanism. Either thru the "natural" way with caloric restriction (CR) or using xenohormetic substances. I know that like usual no pain no gain and CR is the only proven method to trigger this process but still I am not implementing it. Instead I am trying dietary restriction. I turned vegan and avoid foods rich in methionine, leucine or glutamine that are shown to activate mTOR.

 

I am taking also taking resveratrol with nicotidamide riboside as adjuvant. Still the science about it seems a bit shady to me. After some confirmations and refutals it seems that resveratrol does activate SIRT1 although it is only one of the 7 SIRT human genes. Also there is no consensus about the effective dose for humans to match the SIRT activation of CR.

More human clinical trials would also be needed to define what can a long lived mammalian species like us expect from the sirtuin-activating compounds , just a delay in the onset of the morbid aging phase or also a lifespan increase?
On the negative side I read about GlaxoSmith failed phase II trial to treat myeloma with SRT501 (micronized  resveratrol). Seems that some patients had renal problems due to the high dose. They were taking 5 grams daily. So makes me wonder if I am wasting my efforts with my puny 0.5 gram...but I am concerned about unpredicted long time side effects with a higher dose.

 

There are then the telomerase activators. I am a believer in the Telomere Position Effect theory of aging as a way of programmed evolutionary death. But trying to turn back your phenotypic clock with a potent systemic telomerase activator like cycloastragenol seems too risky for me. I am taking though some mild telomerase  activators like sylmarin, ginkgo, DHA, EPA and carnosine but all of them have other additional antiaging properties.
The way the body regulates telomerase is already well designed. It is easier to control cancer in a reduced amount of stem and other few cell types that have telomerase active than if it was active in all somatic cells. The problem as I understand it is that in stem cells it is only active enough to delay the Hayflic limit but not to avoid it like for germ cells. A technique that would fully activate telomerase only in the cells that already express it would be a big step forward.

 

So if all of the above fail we would still have cryonics as the last resort. But that does not seem easy to implement either. First there is yet another technology leap of faith since it should be exponentially more difficult to revive a vitrified body than to keep one alive. Also if the preservation procedures are not started just after legal death the information loss is beyond recoverable. So unless you have a death diagnosis and decide to move next to the Alcor facility in Arizona your chances of the whole intervention being useless are pretty high.

 

My final thought is a criticism to "machinistic" transhumanists like Ray Kurzweil. I believe that human consciousness is intrinsically bound to a particular biological body. If they were able to somehow read from my brain the information that makes up my consciousness would be indeed a great accomplishment but if my body dies I'm gone, no matter if they would be able to load those data in some kind of cybernetic brain or even another human brain.

Machinistic approaches like nanobots or AI are useful as complements to biological techniques that should be our main focus. I envision the perfect technique as a gene therapy that once that we are able to understand the genome and hack it we upgrade it with the latest patches so we are less dependent on exogenous procedures.

 

Well I guess that was enough for an introduction. It's ended up maybe a bit more negative than I initially intended to but as there is no doubt in my mind that if current civilization remains stable long enough cracking immortality is just a matter of time I do not share the optimism of most leaders in the field that we will the first generation to achieve DEV.

Any feedback will be appreciated

Kind regards


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