[ExI] Longevity Dividend Course OP-ED Assignment 03

[Morris Johnson]

03-Healthy  Biology



All living things  have metabolism, metabolism continually causes damage ,
damage eventually causes pathology , pathology is disease, and leads to  aging
then death.  Mother nature made biology so complicated  so every generation
would have no choice but to grow up, reproduce, nurture offspring and then
get dead as fast as possible to make room for the next go round.



"You know what dad, We think there's hope for you yet.  Let's see you weasel
out of this one".

"To do justice to the topic this time, the kids are going to see dad sweat ,
by golly", says I.



Metabolism is the incredibly complex network of molecular and cellular
processes that keep us alive. Gerontologists study metabolism. Pathology is
the network of molecular processes that kill us. Geriatricians study disease
pathology.  A whole  new breed of anti-aging specialists study and treat  the
missing link, damage.   http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23358964/   documents
how some  simple regenerative measures are now part of integrative
(combining of all possible options into a carefully planned package)
medicine.



You can turn an old car into a vintage classic car by assessing the
condition then systematically repairing the old damage , then continue
watching  for new damage and fix  that too.  Why can't you do the same with
people?  That's the "engineering approach" proposed by Dr Aubrey de Grey,
founder of the Methusalah Foundation., Cambridge , UK.  He has raised 10
million dollars of funding in the last 2 years and awards funding for
research towards creating a replicatable animal model,  the Rejuvenated
Robust "Methusalah" Mouse (MM).  Simply put take a mouse as old as a 55 year
old human (in mouse years) and give it  3 times its remaining life
expectancy , all in good health..  If you use these same age retarding
techniques on people you should  halve the rate of damage and  add 30 extra
healthy years to the 30 expected for a 55 year old and raise total
healthspan by 20% overall.



Aubrey sees damage repair as the critical control points that reduce the
metabolic hazards to an acceptable level and manage the risk of diminished
quality of the finished product, lifespan..  Aubrey has segmented the damage
into 7 categories: junk inside cells, junk outside cells, too few cells, too
many cells, chromosome mutations, mitochondria (energy producing
intracellular organelles) mutations and protein crosslinks.  For each
category there is a proposed repair strategy.  The sum of these strategies
is termed "engineered negligible senescence" (SENS)[
http://richardjschueler.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=56847  ] .  Later in
this series I will discuss the safety and efficacy of specific current
therapies as they relate to the "seven deadly sins of  metabolism".   These
interventions are at various stages of research, development and clinical
and  every day commercial  application.  Aubrey states that you don't have
to repair all the damage at once.  If you start at the "biological age" of
55 and select the most critical  areas and fix  HALF THE DAMAGE  you should
double the total healthspan and raise the remaining healthspan  5 times.  The
goal for a commercial regenerative medicine industry would be to reduce the
remaining damage each time therapy is undertaken and implement increasingly
more effective repair.  Eventually repair happens faster than new damage
occurs.























FYI-Watch the  BBC TV series " How to Build a Human 4of4 - Forever Young (60
minutes)  1/6  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7ZAhdSidzk

2/6   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=necHabLN37Q

3/6  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cAIPTPIL7A

4/6   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qqoT1oCEBI

5/6  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LObrLpV8ric

6/6  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pkf23Nn9qX0



Aubrey has coined the term "Longevity Escape Velocity" as the rate at which
rejuvenation therapies must improve in order to hope to outpace the
accumulation of damage they cannot currently fully repair.

Compare this to manned flight, an insoluble problem since the dawn of
civilization until 1903.  Once the  Wright Brothers made the first proven
flight, everything was copied and improved upon  until today we can fly just
about anything anywhere.  For a sneak peek into the future see :
http://transcurve.net/blog/aaron/10-reasons-you-will-live-to-1000.


My next piece will detail the issues surrounding the bioethics debate about
purposefully increasing healthy longevity.  You may send your feedback
attention "Pharmer Mo" at extropian.pharmer at gmail.com
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