Aubrey de Grey Interview in Wired.com

Aubrey de Grey's life extension diet emphasizes the importance of beer.

One of my favourite people in the world, the British gerontologist Aubrey de Grey, recently did an interview with Wired Science (link). If you've read his interviews before, you pretty much know what to expect, but there were a couple of new things in there that I found interesting (he's swearing, for one thing).

The gist of Aubrey de Grey's work is keeping people healthy indefinitely. You can call this unlimited healthspans or radical life extension or rejuvenation therapies or whatever, but the idea remains the same: to cure the biological process of progressive deterioration known as aging. For most people, the word "immortality" still has something of a negative connotation. This has not gone unnoticed by de Grey:

I’ve been out there represented as an immortality merchant since forever. These days, I can afford to not just acquiesce and let journalists use phrases like “immortality,” or at least not in the title of the bloody ass thing.

The reason he doesn't like titles like "Aubrey de Grey is here to make you immortal" is because it makes biogerontology sound like science fiction; something that a handful of people are working on in their garage. The public is apparently not ready for immortality.

And yet there are a growing number of people in the world who are ready to live longer and healthier lives. To any reasonable person, the word "immortality" is a positive thing, as long as one understands what the concept of biological immortality means. What it doesn't mean is that you'll be hurling through space long after the earth has been destroyed in a nuclear war, unable to die. It also doesn't mean that you'll be able to survive getting hit by a truck (although if it did, that would be a positive thing too).

What biological immortality means is that the chronological progress of time no longer dictates when and how you die. Your health will no longer be a simple function of time. Your body will remain youthful and vigorous regardless of how old you are. You can still die – certainly so if you want to die for some reason – but it won't be because of your body deteriorating every year. How this is a bad thing to some people has been beyond me for quite some time now.

The first step in solving the problem of aging will be done in mice. From there on, says Aubrey de Grey, it'll be smooth sailing:

What’s going to happen is the curmudgeons — the card-carrying gerontologists who think it’s very dangerous to be over-optimistic — will eventually recognize the data available to us from mice is so solid we can go out publicly and say, “It’s only a matter of time.” That’s going to take a panel of interventions in mice that’s so comprehensive we actually add two whole years to the lifespan of mice that are already in middle age before we start.

That may be overcautious. We may be able to get gerontologists on board with a more modest result than that. However, at that point, game over. My job will be done. I can retire. Because that will be the point when Oprah will be all over it and the following day it will become impossible to get elected unless you have a manifesto commitment to have a war on aging.

I agree with de Grey. People like Oprah have such a big influence on public opinion that it's ridiculous. I can even imagine someone being very pro-aging before hearing someone like Oprah promoting it, and then changing their mind completely. Once you get the public behind the idea, you'll get the politicians as well. Not that I give a damn about influencing politicians – without all the bureacracy and regulations in the field of medicine, I bet we'd already made a much larger progress in rejuvenation therapies! I'd rather take care of my own health than put it in the hands of any government official.

Another crucial point about people like Oprah: they have a lot of money. And since people with lots of money tend to be interested in preserving their wealth, it makes sense that the same people are also interested in preserving their health. After all, what's the point of having billions of dollars if you're not going to be around to enjoy them?

One thing that de Grey has not really commented on before is how come he doesn't get massive donations from aging billionaires. Some of them have already made plans to cryopreserve themselves, but if you have the chance to stick around without spending five decades in an ice box, why not do that instead? The biggest reason seems to be that billionaires haven't taken the organizations seriously enough:

Wired.com: For most of the billionaire philanthropists that travel in the same circles you do, out of the three things, is it mainly that they just don’t like your organization?

de Grey: I think for a very large, a very sufficient proportion of such people, yes, it’s that third thing. Because I see these people a lot. I go to TED, and there’s no holding back when it comes to 1) the desirability of the goal, and 2) the demonstration of sufficient comprehension of what I’m talking about to understand they believe the plan is feasible. So yes, absolutely.

In other words, there's a lack of professionalism, not necessarily in what the organizations actually do but in how people view them. The Methuselah Foundation is a case in point:

In the beginning, the only thing the Methuselah Foundation did was the longevity prizes for mice. Then, we started funding research directly. We thought it was a really cool idea to have one organization with two very complementary approaches to the same mission. But in fact, it didn’t really work, especially not in terms of messaging.

The foundation has now been split into two, one for prizes and one for funding research. Hopefully this will attract more investors. Besides business and funding, Aubrey talks about some personal things as well. And his love of beer, of course:

I drink exactly the right amount of beer evidently. [laughs] It’s ridiculous, really. Yet, I have to show I’m enjoying my life. It’s public knowledge I am polyamorous as well. That’s something that goes down not so well with some of my more politically sensitive friends and colleagues. But it goes quite well with some other people. [laughs]

Polyamorous, huh? He even goes to say that the whole monogamy thing is "archaic" and will probably be a thing of the past some time in the future. I didn't know de Grey was against monogamy, but I happen to agree. I think the whole concept of jealousy is an unnecessary biological impulse that was useful in the past but will no longer be needed in the future. It certainly isn't a product of the rational side of the brain.

I guess contrarians tend to have a lot in common. When you start to question the official truth in one area, you begin to wonder about other obvious truths as well. I'm sure you've noticed the disproportionate amount of libertarians among the paleo crowd, for example. In many cases it boils down to questioning whether government really knows best.

For some reason, the paleo community is still mostly stuck in the "aging is good" dogma, however. They're determinately against diabetes, obesity, cancer, cardiovascular disease, and every other modern plague, and yet they are unwilling to strike the problem at the root.

Basically, they want to live healthy for 80 years and drop dead. To me that's nonsensical. What's your opinion?

For more information on longevity and aging, see these posts:

Russian Scientist Claims to Have Found Cure for Aging
How Do People Feel about Life Extension?
Aubrey de Grey in Helsinki, Finland
Why Aging Is a Global Disaster That Needs to Be Solved

The Curious Case of Human Hibernation

The survival stories of mountain climbers may be a clue to suspended animation. (Photo by Tim)

Hibernation is a state characterized by inactivity, slower metabolism and lower body temperature. Hibernating animals most often do so to survive food scarcity, especially during the winter. Man is not considered a hibernating animal, but a glance at modern science and strange accounts from the past suggest we may have to revise our views in the future.

James Braid, the father of hypnotherapy and a man with a fascination for the occult, recorded several odd cases of humans surviving hibernation-like conditions in his 1850 book Observations on Trance (link). In his most famous account an Indian fakir was buried alive in the presence of Sir Claude Wade, the English governor at the time. After remaining in the ground for several months, the fakir was reportedly exhumed and restored to consciousness in good health.

No one knows if Braid and Wade were telling the truth, but findings of the same nature have been reported even quite recently. A 1998 paper from Physiology describes two Indian yogis performing similar stunts, although the durations were much shorter (link):

One yogi went into a state of deep bodily rest and lowered metabolism and was able to remain in an airtight box with no ill effects and no sign of tachycardia or hyperpnea for 10 h.

In a different study done in a more naturalistic setting on a different adept, Yogi Satyamurti (70 yr of age) remained confined in a small underground pit, sealed from the top, for 8 days. He was physically restricted by recording wires, during which time electrocardiogram results showed his heart rate to be below the measurable sensitivity of the recording instruments.

A hundred and ten years ago the British Medical Journal ran a short article titled Human Hibernation (link). The article, reprinted in 2000, is a peculiar account of how poor Russian peasants allegedly survive famine by sleeping for half of the year. I'm quoting the full article here:

A Practice closely akin to hibernation is said to be general among Russian peasants in the Pskov Government, where food is scanty to a degree almost equivalent to chronic famine. Not having provisions enough to carry them through the whole year, they adopt the economical expedient of spending one half of it in sleep. This custom has existed among them from time immemorial.

At the first fall of snow the whole family gathers round the stove, lies down, ceases to wrestle with the problems of human existence, and quietly goes to sleep. Once a day every one wakes up to eat a piece of hard bread, of which an amount sufficient to last six months has providently been baked in the previous autumn. When the bread has been washed down with a draught of water, everyone goes to sleep again. The members of the family take it in turn to watch and keep the fire alight.

After six months of this reposeful existence the family wakes up, shakes itself, goes out to see if the grass is growing, and by-and-by sets to work at summer tasks. The country remains comparatively lively till the following winter, when again all signs of life disappear and all is silent, except we presume for the snores of the sleepers.

This winter sleep is called 'lotska'. These simple folk evidently come within '0 fortunatos nimium sua si bona norint!'

In addition to the economic advantages of hibernation, the mere thought of a sleep which knits up the ravelled sleeve of care for half a year on end is calculated to fill our harassed souls with envy. We, doomed to dwell here where men sit and hear each other groan, can scarce imagine what it must be for six whole months out of the twelve to be in the state of Nirvana longed for by Eastern sages, free from the stress of life, from the need to labour, from the multitudinous burdens, anxieties, and vexations of existence.

Don't you just love the poetic style of scientific writing back in those days? The lotska sounds more like an urban legend than an accurate description of lowered metabolism, but in 1906 – six years after the original article appeared – The New York Times ran a story on starving peasants in Russia "lying motionless for days at a time, in order to weaken the pangs of hunger". A few days later, there was a letter to the editor with the following comment on the story (link):

This exigency may be akin to the pseudo-hibernation habitually practiced by Russian peasants in the northern provinces, notably in the Pskov district. If such is the case, the hardships endured by the peasants this Winter may not be as great as the casual reader might be led to believe.

True, the pseudo-hibernation which is general in Pskov has resulted from the fact that famine is well-nigh chronic there; but by pratice from time immemorial the peasants have become accustomed to imitate the habit of the bear and the marmto in Winter, until now the custom is regarded by them as one of the normal conditions of human existence. They have a name for this Winter sleep. It is called "lotska".

In the brief Autumn the housewives prepare a sufficient quantity of hard, black bread to last until Spring. When Winter sets in in earnest the family lie down around the stove and go to sleep. Once in the twenty-four hours everyone wakes up, to nibble at a piece of the black bread, which is washed down with a drink of water. Then all go to sleep again. The members of the family take watch and watch about to keep the fire going.

This pseudo-hibernation lasts until Spring, or upward of six months, when the peasants take up their humble tasks again and are busy until the succeeding Witner, when silence reigns over the frozen land once more.

The writing is somewhat similar to the original 1900 article, but it's not clear whether the writer is the same. Searching for more information on this ancient art of lotska doesn't yield much new, so we're left wondering if the peasants really spent their long winters this way.

The accounts above are of people willingly undergoing depressed metabolism and what might be called a hibernation-like state, but what about people who fall into similar states by accident?

Fast forward about a hundred years, to 1999, when Swedish radiologist Anna Bågenholm got into a skiing accident which left her trapped under a layer of ice (link). For 1 hour 20 minutes, she was in freezing water, suffering the most extreme hypothermia ever recorded in a human. When she was rescued and taken to a hospital, her body temperature was a lethally low 13.7 °C.

After 40 minutes in the icy water, Bågenholm was in cardiac arrest. During cardiac arrest, the normal circulation of blood stops due to failure of the heart to contract effectively. As a result, oxygen is no longer delivered to the body and the brain, which leads to loss of consciousness. Brain injury usually happens after five minutes.

Strangely, despite minor symptoms related to nerve injury, no permanent brain damage was diagnosed in Bågenholm's case. One of the doctors treating her reported that "her body had time to cool down completely before the heart stopped. Her brain was so cold when the heart stopped that the brain cells needed very little oxygen, so the brain could survive for quite a prolonged time."

In 2006, a Japanese man named Mitsutaka Uchikoshi went missing during a mountain climb with friends (link). After leaving his friends to descend the mountain on his own, he tripped and lost consciousness. When he was found 24 days later, his pulse was almost non-existent, his organs had shut down and his body temperature was 22 °C.

Upon hearing his remarkable story, some doctors deemed it physiologically impossible that he had survived for so long without any water. His metabolism had apparently grinded to an almost complete halt. One of the doctors treating him commented: "He fell into a hypothermic state at a very early stage, which is similar to hibernation. Therefore, his brain functions were protected without being damaged and have now recovered 100%. This is what I believe happened".

In late December 2008, Magdeline Makola was abducted and tied up in a car boot (link). After 10 days of drifting in and out of consciousness in below-freezing temperatures, she was found by two traffic police officers. According to doctors, 48 more hours and she would've been dead; in a warmer temperature and she might not have made it through the 10 days. The hypothermia may have saved her life.

In a fascinating TED Talk from 2009, Ken Kamler describes the worst disaster in the history of Mount Everest, and the story of one climber's miraculous survival (link). Due to the fierce wind and extreme conditions, he was not able to return to the base camp from higher up in the mountain and instead just lay there in the snow, too weak to move.

Amidst the chaos, everyone presumed he was dead, until he burst into Kamler's medical tent seemingly out of nowhere, having forced himself to get up and trek back to base camp after 36 hours of being buried in the freezing snow.

Kamler tells the story as an example of the power of the human mind. The climber told him that while laying there in under the snow, he'd thought of his wife and child at home and decided that he couldn't just die there on the mountain. He had to survive for their sake. And so, severely frostbitten and suffering from hypothermia, he somehow managed to not only come back to life but to walk without help to base camp.

The human mind is undoubtedly capable of great things, but reading all these stories, I'm left wondering whether there is something else at play. A recurring theme in many of the cases seems to be that these people's metabolism was slowed down due to freezing temperatures and low oxygen. At mountain altitudes, for example, temperatures and oxygen are lower than at ground level. Even the yogis' tricks were done in small airtight spaces.

For the past years, cell biologist Mark Roth has examined the relationship between oxygen, metabolism and suspended animation. In 2005, he showed that mice exposed to small amounts of hydrogen sulfide put them in a state of hibernation, from which they could be brought back unharmed. The hydrogen sulfide caused the mice's core temperature to drop from 37 °C to 11 °C and their metabolism to slow by 90 percent. Hydrogen sulfide, which is naturally present in the body but toxic at large doses, works by preventing oxygen from binding.

Using freezing temperatures to induce hibernation is generally a bad idea in many species. Warm-blooded animals like humans react to cold by cranking up the internal heating system and burning more oxygen, which spells trouble. According to Roth, the key to lowering metabolism safely is to combine cooling with something that reduces the demand for oxygen (link):

I’m going to be talking [at TED] about unpublished work where we have demonstrated that if you make certain animals cold in an animated state, you kill them. But if you make those same animals cold, but they are now suspended, they all survive.

During the same TED Talk, he mentions experiments showing that if you reduce the oxygen content in the air slightly, roundworms die, and if you reduce it a lot – down to 10 ppm – they stop moving and appear dead but are in fact alive in a state of suspended animation. Unlike their animated and lively friends, these suspended roundworms can be put into cold temperatures without harm.

Exposing an organism to hydrogen sulfide is another way to achieve the same effect as reducing the oxygen content of a container or a room. By binding at the same cell site as oxygen, hydrogen sulfide reduces the need for oxygen, depressing metabolism. Roth theorizes that perhaps hydrogen sulfide production was increased in Bågenholm's own body when she fell under the ice, thus preventing her from dying from the cold.

The first practical application of this technique is surgery, which requires mild hypothermia to prevent harming patients. Even with a small amount of injectable hydrogen sulfide, which Roth's company has developed, the results are apparently better than with a traditional approach. Safety studies are already done, and human trials are underway.

While this is undoubtedly a great medical breakthrough, I can't help but think of other possible applications. What Roth has done is deanimate a mouse by reducing its metabolism and then bring it back to life unharmed. If the human trials are succesful, could this mean hydrogen sulfide might be used even outside surgery? Are we talking about a potential lightweight version of cryonics?

At this point, no one knows. Although similar findings have been confirmed by another lab using mice, two other labs reported that hydrogen sulfide did not induce hibernation in sheep or pigs (link, link), casting doubt on the feasibility of induced hibernation in large mammals.

Also, Roth didn't do lifespan experiments with his mice, so we don't know whether suspending them for longer periods of time might have made them live longer. But given that the connection between lower metabolism and extended lifespan has been shown in several other experiments, I certainly wouldn't be surprised if it did.

Makes you wonder if we could one day be like those poor Russian peasants, sleeping through the hard times and waiting for a brighter future.

For more information on technology and life extension, see these posts:

Biotechnology and the Future of Aging
How to Live Forever: My 5 Steps to Immortality
Aubrey de Grey in Helsinki, Finland
Anti-Aging in the Media: Rolling Stone on Ray Kurzweil

How Do People Feel about Life Extension?

What do you think future societies will look like? (Photo by Tattooed JJ)

If you're a proponent of anti-aging technologies, you most likely know how difficult it can be to argue with people in the pro-aging camp. It sometimes seems that no amount of logical arguments will convince someone who has decided the embrace the idea of dying.

Even though the benefits of increasing human healthspan should be clear to anyone who spends more than a minute thinking about the issue, trying to change public opinion is always a daunting task that takes a long time. If the message you're preaching is true, they will agree with you in the end, but in the meantime, they won't hear a word of it.

I've already written about one global survey on immortality, which indicated that the situation is not quite as hopeless as it could be – the word "immortality" is intimidating to many, after all, and yet there were positive reactions too. But how exactly does the public feel about life extension? If you don't want to live forever, how about living a little bit longer in good health?

This is the question posed by Partridge et al. in their survey, published last year in the Rejuvenation Research journal (link). The team interviewed more than 600 Australians, asking how they felt about the implications of humans being able to live significantly longer. Before the actual questions, the participants were presented with the following vignette:

For this survey, I’d like you to consider the possibility that scientists may develop new biotechnologies to slow down the body’s aging process and vastly increase the length of the human lifespan. This is called life-extension research.

Over the last 100 years or so, better ways to treat and cure diseases have made it possible for people to live longer on average. But, life-extension research aims to
make it possible for people to live much longer lives than we do today, not simply by treating or curing disease, but by slowing down the actual aging process itself. Some scientists estimate that we could live up to 150 years or more by intervening in the rate that we age. By controlling the processes in our body that cause people to age, they claim that we wouldn’t become frail and die at the age we do now, because we wouldn’t deteriorate as quickly. Even though life-extension technologies wouldn’t cure diseases or reverse the ageing process, they may delay the onset of age-related health problems. Ways to slow aging could eventually be offered to people through a range of methods—most likely as life-extension pills.

Imagine what life would be like if scientists developed biotechnologies to slow aging so that people could live past 150 years.

After the vignette, they were asked whether they agree or disagree (on a 7-point scale) with the five questions discussed below. If the participants indicated any level of agreement, they were asked to briefly explain their view and name the most important reasons for their answer.

1. There are ethical or moral issues surrounding life extension research that I find concerning.

More than half (58%) thought that there were some ethical concerns with life extension, the most common being that life extension was "unnatural". Phrases such as "tampering with nature" or "playing God" were common. Second on the list of ethical concerns was the impact of life extension on society and the environment. Overpopulation and lack of sufficient resources were seen as potential problems.

Other ethical concerns included the worry of only rich people having access to life extension technologies and conflicts with religious beliefs. Some participants also felt that funding should be directed to more pressing issues such as treating diseases and poverty, rather than life extension.

2. There would be benefits for me personally from aging slower and living to 150.

Two thirds (64%) thought that a life extension pill would benefit them personally. The most commonly cited benefit was spending more time family members and living to meet future generations of one's family. Almost as many participants saw the ability to experience more things and fulfill life goals as a positive thing.

Being healthier for a longer time was also seen as a benefit, and some felt "living longer" was a benefit that required no further explanation. Only a few (2%) participants named cosmetic improvements as an important benefit, while 7% said they wanted to see what future socities and technologies would look like.

3. There would be downsides for me personally from aging slower and living to 150.

About 80% could name at least one downside to taking a life extension pill. The biggest worry was that the pill would grant extra years of unhealthy life. Living for a long time with a chronic illness was a common fear, as was the uncertainty of physical and mental abilities in someone who is 150.

Second on the list were financial issues with living longer. Many felt that they wouldn't be able to afford to live for many more years. The third problem, identified by 12%, was outliving friends and family: "If I was to take this medication my friends may not take it and you would slowly watch friends die around you.’" Only 5% saw boredom as an issue.

4. Developing life-extension pills would have benefits for society overall.

Half of the participants thought there were some benefits to society from life extension technologies. The most commonly identified benefit was an increase in collective human wisdom and knowledge. The fact that important people such as doctors, scientists, etc. would be around for longer was also seen as a good thing. The third most common benefit was the personal ability to contribute to society more.

5. Developing life-extension pills would have downsides for society overall.

The majority (78%) thought that life extension would have at least some negative consequences for society. Overpopulation was again the most common downside. Participants also felt that health care, housing, food production and welfare would suffer as a consequence, and that there would not be enough resources to support everyone.

Conclusion

The main objection to life extension is still the idea that there is something unnatural and therefore bad about life extension. This thinking seems to be prevalent in religious and non-religious people alike. Other worries include overpopulation and lack of resources in a world where people live significantly longer. Quite a few are also afraid that only the rich will have access to rejuvenation therapies once they become available. Finally, some people worry that these therapies will only prolong unhealthy years, making living longer miserable.

Yet, people also see many positives in life extension. A recurring theme among those surveyed was the ability to spend more time with their family and to live long enough to see their grand-grandchildren grow up. People also felt that a longer life would allow them to experience more things and achieve more of their dreams. Though lack of resources was seen as a problem on the level of societies, many also saw the increase of collective knowledge and the ability to contribute more to society as positive effects of life extension.

And there we have it: the way the average person feels about life extension today. Although seeing the same old pro-aging arguments repeated again and again frustrates me, the fact that so many people were able to see the good things in living longer makes me optimistic. All that is required, then, is to talk to people who have doubts about whether life extension is desirable, to understand where they're coming from, and to get them to open their eyes.

I've already offered some counterarguments to the objections mentioned above in earlier blog posts, but I suppose a more detailed dissection of the arguments is in order. Since most people clearly have the same fears and questions, we might as well learn how to answer them to the best of our abilities. It's about time we break the pro-aging trance, isn't it?

For more information on life extension, see these posts:

Aubrey de Grey in Helsinki, Finland
Why Aging Is a Global Disaster That Needs to Be Solved
Who Wants to Live Forever? Results from a Global Survey
Anti-Aging in the Media: Daily Telegraph on Curing Aging

Aubrey de Grey in Helsinki, Finland

Aubrey de Grey wants to prevent aging and has an idea how to do it.

This weekend, I got a chance to see a presentation by the brilliant Dr. Aubrey de Grey. His visit to Finland came unexpectedly to me, but luckily I got the word a day before and managed to see him in person. Much of the things he talked about I was already familiar with from his earlier presentations, but there were also bits and pieces that were new to me.

The whole two hours was videotaped by the organizers – a rather surprising co-effort between the Finnish Transhumanist Association and the Green League of Finland – but as far as I know, it's not online yet. I will link to it from this post once it is. UPDATE: And here it is (it's in 12 pieces because of Youtube's limitation):

All in all, I found the presentation very understandable, concise and even entertaining. Everything except maybe the part about the seven types of aging damage was understandable even for the layperson. If you have doubts about whether ending aging is desirable or possible, I very much recommend watching some of his lectures online. They're also very useful if you want to convince others that the fight against aging is an important one.

One thing I noticed Aubrey does well (and I don't) is to counter arguments by people whose life philosophy is, in my opinion, grounded on bad logic. For example, he gave a good response to the religious objection that life extension is a sin, arguing that it's essentially the other way around, because not doing anything to aging is the same thing as allowing suffering, which must be wrong.

Personally, I have very little tolerance for this kind of religious arguments, because I mostly feel it's useless to try to convince a religious person of anything using rational arguments. Yet, to make the life extension meme spread, the patience to convince even irrational people using their own logic is necessary. My hat off to de Grey for having that patience.

There are all kinds of variations on the argument that stopping aging is a sin. Even many atheists fall for the idea that aging is natural and therefore good. Aubrey poked fun at this, saying that in any other field arguments like this would be considered childishly absurd, but that for some reason they pass as reasonable among gerontologists. One of the strongest arguments against this is that every kind of medical intervention we have is just as "unnatural" as curing aging. So logically, if you think we shouldn't do anything about aging, you should also oppose curing diseases such as cancer, diabetes, etc. Yet almost no one is willing to decline cancer treatments if they happen to get sick.

This is also related to another common display of irrational thinking: that if you ask people "what do you want to die of?" none of them will answer they want to die of cancer or diabetes. Instead, most people will answer that they prefer to die "naturally" of "old age". This is of course complete nonsense, because old people don't die just because they're chronologically old, they die because their bodies don't function as well as they did when they were chronologically young. Even when people say someone died of old age, in reality they died from the accumulation of damage in the body. If you want to prevent this damage from killing you when you're young, why wouldn't you want to do the same when you're old?

Another important point is that unlike what people imagine their own death to be like – quick and painless – for the overwhelming majority of the world's population it is nothing of the sort. What it is is a slow decline in physical and mental capabilities followed by a complete collapse and, ultimately, death. It is a process of slow deterioration that goes on for decades, with each decade being progressively worse in terms of biological functions than the previous one. To wish such a fate upon yourself is irrational, and to wish it upon others is just evil.

The overpopulation argument is a popular one but shows such incapability of imagination that I really have to push myself these days to counter it. I watched Aubrey counter it at least twice; once during the presentation and once during the Q&A session. It still blows my mind that people can even consider sacrificing the lives of millions now in order to avoid a possible risk of overpopulation in the future.

I really feel that this argument is not the result of rational thinking but rather the result of a need to avoid cognitive dissonance in someone who first encounters the idea of living significantly longer. It's a quick anesthetic, for the part of the brain that desperately tries to scream that ending aging is both desirable and possible, by the part of the brain that desperately wants to cling on to existing conditions.

Yet another typical objection to ending aging is that rejuvenation therapies would only be available to the rich. Aubrey's refutation to this is that governments simply cannot afford to do this, because aging costs society an incredible amount of money each year and that putting old people back into the workforce would bring wealth. While I agree with him that it would be foolish for a state to restrict access to rejuvenation therapies, I also find the idea of forcing people at gunpoint (i.e. collecting taxes) to pay for someone else's therapy repulsive. I think the private sector will play a much bigger role than the public sector once the first treatments hit the market. Offering them just to the extremely rich is economically stupid.

Naturally, Aubrey de Grey also talked about how we might go about fixing aging. I've written about the basic idea in the post about the seven types of aging damage, so I won't go into it here. There were some interesting points raised during the Q&A session, however, such as using nanotechnology in rejuvenation therapies and replacing organs or even entire bodies instead of rejuvenating them. While de Grey seemed to agree in principle with what Ray Kurzweil predicts will happen, his own prediction was that future rejuvenation therapies would take on a more traditional biological approach first – injections and stem cell treatments, for example. The second generation of therapies might be something more radical.

If you're in any way interested in anti-aging, I highly recommend you watch at least one of Aubrey's presentations online (see here and here for examples). The reason he's out there giving presentations in the first place is to make people aware that combatting aging is not just science fiction. It will happen sooner or later, and if we want to make it happen sooner, the message needs to be heard.

As I'm sure you've noticed, a part of the reason this blog exists is to inform people about the cause. This includes discussing both why life extension is desirable and how it might be possible. I urge everyone to get familiar with the most common objections people have to fighting aging, to understand the counterarguments to the objections, and to go out there and talk to people.

Yes, they will probably think you're crazy at first, and then they'll try to show that you're wrong. But in the end, they will be there in the rejuvenation therapy queue, telling you how they always knew we would one day conquer aging.

For more information on aging and how to prevent it, see these posts:

Anti-Aging in the Media: The Independent on Immortality
Why Aging Is a Global Disaster That Needs to Be Solved
The 7 Types of Aging Damage That End up Killing You
Biotechnology and the Future of Aging

Anti-Aging in the Media: Daily Telegraph on Curing Aging

Making it to a 1,000 years old is possible if you're still young. (Photo by pedrosimoes7)

Seems like the mainstream media has been a little quiet on anti-aging news in the past few months. Maybe the summer has had something to do with it. No time to worry about getting old and dying when the sun is shining outside!

Thankfully, The Daily Telegraph is here to remind us that autumn is coming fast and death lurks around every corner again. In an article titled "Could there be a cure for ageing?" Danny Penman takes a peek at what the future has in store for us.

I've often expressed my surprise at the positive tone of many of these pieces, but I guess I should stop being surprised and just accept that perhaps the tides are turning for good. Sure, there will be an uproar against rejuvenation therapies from irrational people, but it's good to see reporters with an optimistic attitude towards life extension.

Mr. Penman even mentions the fourth Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS) conference that took place a few weeks ago. He quotes Aubrey de Grey in the article:

"Conventional medical progress has ensured that a child born today can expect to live 120 to 150 years. I think it's possible for them to live far longer. If we make the right breakthroughs in the next 25 years, then there is a 50:50 chance that people alive today could live to be 1,000 years old."

Such optimistic estimates are nothing new from de Grey, but usually he's shared them with people who are already life extensionists and expressed his predictions in more conservative terms for the mainstream crowd. Apparently people accept lifespans of 200 to 300 years more easily than living to be 1,000 years old. The fact that he mentions this figure will probably seem very radical to most readers, but as de Grey himself says, the true implications of rejuvenation therapies are lifespans measured in millions of years.

There is, of course, always the chance that none of us alive today will get a ticket for the ride. Our lifespans will, on average, probably be greater than those of previous generations even without any dramatic interventions, but the ultimate goal of every sensible life extensionist is making it to escape velocity:

The "normal" rate of medical progress ensures that life expectancy increases by about two years every decade. This ensures that for every hour that passes, you have gained 12 minutes of life expectancy. Accelerate the rate of progress, and you stand a chance of achieving "take-off"– the point at which life expectancy increases faster than the population ages.

The article briefly mentions the disposable soma theory of aging – which has to do with evolution favoring reproduction over maintenance – and goes over the seven types of aging damage. Then, after an obligatory discussion of modern plaques like diabetes and Alzheimer's and how solving aging is related to them, there's a more exciting part:

Custom-building body parts – or even replacing whole limbs – may seem like the realm of science fiction but this may soon become reality.

Already scientists routinely produce skin and simple body parts, such as ears. Twelve years ago, the world was stunned by the picture of a human ear growing on the back of a mouse. Since then, the technique has advanced so fast that body parts are now routinely grown in vats rather than in animals. More than 300,000 people have now received such tissue-engineered body parts.

I'm pretty sure most people are generally unaware of the progress being made in tissue engineering. I think it's a very promising field, if only for the fact that replacing limbs with artificial ones will likely go down with the public better than the whole "let's live forever" concept. A few decades ago, being paralyzed in many ways resembled a death sentence – because who would want to stare at the ceiling in a hospital bed for the rest of their life? – but with technologies such as tissue engineering, it'll be only a temporary problem.

In the name of objective journalism, the anti-anti-aging crowd gets their voice heard too. Representing the pessimist side is Dr. Richard Faragher (who happens to be chair of the British Society for Research on Ageing, by the way!) whose vision of how we should spend our resources are somewhat different:

"Aubrey is effectively a science-fiction writer," says Dr Faragher. "There are many ways that public health can be improved through simple measures such as managing hip fractures more effectively. We should be focusing on these things rather than dreaming about immortality."

The fact that this dimwit is involved in deciding how funds for ageing research are spent is beyond me. He seems to think that desperately treating hip fractures as the population gets older and older is a better long-term solution than trying to fix the very problem of aging. A geriatric approach if I ever saw one.

As Henry David Thoreau said, "There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root."

For more information on anti-aging and immortality, see these posts:

How to Live Forever: My 5 Steps to Immortality
Biotechnology and the Future of Aging
Who Wants to Live Forever? Results from a Global Survey
Anti-Aging in the Media: New York Times on Caloric Restriction and Resveratrol

The 7 Types of Aging Damage That End up Killing You

The longer you live, the more time you have to explore the world. (Photo by iko)

If aging merely meant the passage of time, there'd be nothing wrong with it.

In fact, it'd be a good thing. The older you got, the more things you would know, the more skills you would've acquired, the more experiences you would've had, and the more people you would've met. All this while retaining the strength and vigour of youth. Doesn't sound too bad.

The problem is that what aging really means is the passage of time accompanied by a set of degenerative biological processes that harm the abilitity of our bodies to function and eventually cause us to die. What good is all that knowledge and all those experiences if you can't remember any of it? What good are all those skills when you're no longer able to use them?

We don't really know why we age. That's an interesting question in its own right, but it's beyond the scope of this post. The point of this post is to take a closer look at the biological processes that accompany the passage of time and together form the seven classes of aging damage.

It is because of this process of biological decay that we grow old. Not old the way vampires are "old" yet still magically look the same, but the way people and animals are old – fragile, weak and sick. To be clear, despite what most people tell themselves, there is nothing good about growing old, because all it really means is a cumulative and irreversible increase in fragility, weakness and sickness.

The good news is that despite decades of studying aging, we have identified only seven types of primary damage to our bodies from aging. The rest are secondary consequences of primary damage. If you prevent the primary damage from occurring, you will prevent the secondary consequences as a result, but not vice versa.

And why is it a good thing that there are seven causes of aging? Because it means that the aging process is not a complete mystery anymore. Or rather, the consequences of the aging process are not a complete mystery to us. Even though we don't have a clear explanation for why these seven types of damage occur in the first place (i.e. why are we not born biologically immortal?) we have a pretty good understanding of how they work.

And if we know all the things that are going wrong with our bodies as we age, we can begin to fix them.

The three approaches to the sinking boat problem

Imagine that the human body is a boat. For many years, the boat sails without a problem. But then, somewhere in the middle of the ocean, there's a problem: a hole has appeared in the bottom, and the boat is going to sink.

Now imagine that on that boat, there are three people: an architect, a mechanic, and a museum keeper. You go to them and ask each one in turn what could be done to fix the situation.

The architect has no experience in repairing boats. He is interested in understanding the nature of boats. He has heaps of drawings of boats and calculations for which kind of materials are suitable for a specific type of boat, but he doesn't actually build the boats. His suggestion is to study the boat carefully to understand the exact reasons that caused the hole to appear. If we understand the causes, he figures, we are better equipped to fix the problem.

You know there's no time for all that because the boat is sinking fast, so you go to the museum keeper. He runs a museum with old boats on display and has some experience on renovating worn down boats for museum use. He's not really interested in making them actually usable at sea; all they need to do is look good. His suggestion is to just let the boat sink, because sink it will, and then come back later to drag it from the bottom of the ocean and put it on display.

That doesn't feel like such a great idea either, so you turn to the mechanic. He has no idea where the hole came from, isn't familiar with the exact type of boat, and is in no hurry to visit the ocean floor. But he does have a plan: have two of you scoop the water back into the sea as fast as possible, while the other two find something to fill the hole with. There's no guarantee that another hole won't appear later on, but at the very least, his plan is going to buy you extra time.

At this point, extra time sounds pretty damn good, so you go with the mechanist's suggestion and grab the nearest bucket to start scooping.

Gerontology, engineering and geriatrics

There are three approaches to the study of aging: gerontology, engineering and geriatrics. In the boat metaphor above, the architect is the gerontologist, the mechanic is the engineer, and the museum keeper is the geriatricist.

Broadly defined, gerontology is the study of aging. It encompasses a wide range of subfields, but for the purposes of this post, biogerontology is the subcategory of interest. Biogerontologists seek to understand the biological processes that cause aging. A fascinating field of study, for sure, but as the boat example illustrates, when you're the one actively falling apart, perhaps a bit too theoretical.

Geriatrics, on the other hand, is a branch of medicine focused on the health care of the elderly. The emphasis is on treatment rather than prevention. One could even say it's about alleviating the symptoms rather than reversing the damage, much less fixing the cause. The problem is that the geriatricist has no interest in helping you unless your boat is already beyond repair.

The engineering approach to aging is to fix the damage as it occurs. The purpose is not to fully understand all the reasons that the damage happens in the first place, interesting as it may be; it's enough to know that it's there. Rather, the emphasis is on periodic repair and maintenance, so that even after years of use, the boat still looks, feels and sails like new. And if during those extra years of use maintenance buys us we learn something new about how to make boats more resistant to damage, all the better.

To me, the engineering approach is a matter of priorities. Yes, it would be fascinating to understand the complete workings of the human body, but it's much less fascinating to die trying now than it is to live significantly longer and find out later. Besides, the more years you have left, the more time you have for things like research and thus the more chance of succeeding in mapping out every possible metabolic pathway. Life should be our first priority in everything, because death cuts everything else short.

The seven deadly sins of aging

Without further ado, let's take a look at what the seven types of aging damage are and what we think can be done about them. Again, while identifying the different ways in which aging manifestates itself doesn't really explain why the damage happens, or even why there are exactly seven types of damage, it does provide us with clear goals for an engineering approach to life extension.

This approach of focusing on rejuvenation rather than slowing down aging itself is referred to as SENS, or Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence, a term originally coined by Aubrey de Grey in his book The Mitochondrial Free Radical Theory of Aging. Each of the SENS strategies targets one of the seven types of damage, listed below.

1. Cell loss and shrinking tissue

Worn out cells in the body are usually replaced by cell division. However, as we age, some of the cells we lose can no longer be replaced or they are replaced very slowly, which means that cells are being lost faster than they are produced.

In skeletal muscle, cell loss means shrinking tissue and weaker muscles. In the heart muscle, it means a more fragile heart. In the brain, it means a loss of neurons and causes a host of mental problems. Currently, one of the best approaches to cell loss is exercise, but its effects are nevertheless very limited.

The solution: stimulating cell division or introducing new cells (repleniSENS)

2. Mutations in the cell nucleus

Two types of changes in our chromosomes occur as we age: mutations and epimutations. The former are changes to the DNA itself, while the latter are changes to the propensity of the DNA to be decoded into proteins.

In some cases, changes to the DNA can lead to the formation of cancer. Non-cancerous mutations and epimutations do not in most cases contribute to the aging process, and in the rare cases that they do pose a problem, they are taken care of by other strategies (repleniSENS and apoptoSENS), so we don't have to worry about them at this point. Cancer, however, is definitely a problem, as anyone who's looked at mortality statistics in the Western world can testify .

The solution: removing the genes needed for telomerase (OncoSENS)

3. Mutations in the mitochondria

Mitochondria are known as the "power plants" of cells, because they play a key role in energy production. They also control cell growth and the cell cycle. Mitochondria contain their own mitochrondrial DNA (mtDNA), which encodes a small but important part of the proteins in the mitochondrion.

The problem is that the mitochrondrial environment is highly oxidative, and the repair mechanisms are much less sophisticated than those in the cell nucleus, which contains most of the DNA. The result is that mitochondria are very vulnerable to the accumulation of mutations, which is thought to accelerate aging. Therefore, preventing the accumulation of mitochondrial mutations requires a strategy of its own.

The solution: moving the DNA into the cell nucleus for better protection (MitoSENS)

4. Cells that refuse to die

Sometimes cells can acquire a state in which they are no longer able to divide but refuse to die, causing damage to neighboring cells. There are three classes of cells that can go into this harmful state: visceral fat cells, senescent cells and immune system cells. The problems that the accumulation of these cells cause are insulin resistance, tissue degradation, and vulnerability to infection.

Normally, the body is able to get rid of such harmful cells through apoptosis, a signal for the cell to kill itself. When the cells stop responding to these signals, other methods are needed to destroy them. While surgery can be used to remove visceral fat, the main alternatives to destroying senescent and immune system cells are injecting something to force apoptosis or stimulating the immune system to kill the cells.

The solution: forcing cell suicide or using the immune system to kill target cells (ApoptoSENS)

5. Tissue stiffening from crosslinks

The body is much better at keeping the insides of cells clean than it is maintaining proper functioning outside the cells. Inside the cells, proteins are regularly destroyed and rebuilt to keep things running smoothly, but outside, some proteins are recycled very slowly or never. With time, these long-lived proteins can run into problems.

Chemical reactions can sometimes cause two proteins to form a chemical bond known as a crosslink, which hinders their ability to slide across or along each other. Advanced glycation endproducts (AGEs) are probably the most famous example of crosslinks. When too many crosslinks occur, tissues lose their elasticity and problems arise. In artery walls, for example, tissue stiffening causes an increase in blood pressure. Breaking these crosslinks is needed to maintain a youthful state.

The solution: using specific enzymes or proteins to break crosslinks (GlycoSENS)

6. Junk outside the cells

This is another form of junk outside the cells that accumulates with aging, but it differs from crosslinks in that it has no useful function whatsoever. This junk should be cleared out of the body, but as in the case of death-resistant cells, the body is not able to digest or remove the material.

An example of junk outside the cells are the amyloid plaques in the brains of Alzheimer's patients. This web-like material accumulates in everyone's brains with age, but problems become visible only after a certain threshold has been reached. In supercentenarians, extracellular junk is one of the biggest killers.

The solution: stimulating the immune system to clear out the junk (AmyloSENS)

7. Junk inside the cells

As mentioned earlier, the body is fairly good at breaking break down proteins and other molecules in the cell which are no longer useful. However, sometimes these molecules have gone through chemical changes that makes the cell unable to digest them any longer. They then end up in the lysosome, which is the most powerful place to degrade molecules. If the lysosome is unable to get rid of them, they end up as intracellular junk and stay there practically forever.

In dividing cells this is not too big of a problem, because each division dilutes the junk, and the threshold where problems occur is not reached. But in non-dividing cells, the accumulation of this junk eventually causes the cells to stop functioning correctly. The result is problems such as atherosclerosis, blindness, liver spots, and a host of neurogenerative diseases.

The solution: making the lysosome more powerful to degrade the junk (LysoSENS)

Summary

There you have it, the seven types of aging damage that need to be fixed in order for true rejuvenation engineering to happen. And how do we know the list ends here? Isn't it possible there are other causes we just don't know of yet? Theoretically, yes, but it seems highly unlikely. Here's an explanation taken from the SENS Foundation website:

We can be confident that this list is complete, first and foremost because of the fact that scientists have not discovered any new kinds of aging damage in nearly a generation, despite the facts that research into aging has been slowly accelerating and that we have had ever-increasingly powerful tools with which to investigate the aging body.

Challenging as fixing this damage may be, the fact that we know what we need to do should still leave you with a fairly optimistic view of things. As I've said before, solving these problems is really a question of "when", not "if". And the sooner it is, the better – for all of us.

Even if you're not studying or working in the field, there are a couple of very practical ways to help make these rejuvenation therapies come true in your lifetime. The SENS website has a pretty good list of things with something for everyone, but I'll mention two important ones here.

Money is always needed, so one good option is to donate to the Methuselah Foundation or to the SENS Foundation to support research (and if you're sceptical of donations actually doing anything, here's some good news: a recent target of $16,000 was succesfully reached and exceeded earlier this month for research on using lasers to remove intracellular junk).

Another important thing is to talk to people and spread the word: many people don't have any idea that life extension is not just science fiction anymore. Significantly longer and healthier lifespans are the future, and just how far away this future is depends entirely on us.

For more information on preventing aging, see these posts:

How to Live Forever: My 5 Steps to Immortality
Slowing Down Aging with Intermittent Protein Restriction
Who Wants to Live Forever? Results from a Global Survey
Anti-Aging in the Media: New York Times on Caloric Restriction and Resveratrol

Want to Help Practical Anti-Aging Research? Here's Your Chance

In the future, we won't need Photoshop. (Photo by Tucia)

If you support the anti-aging movement but are unsure how to help in practice, here's a good chance to do just that without even leaving your computer.

The Immortality Institute has announced a matching grant for anti-aging research. The Institute will match every contribution for the study of laser ablation of lipofuscin up to $8,000. For every dollar you donate, they will donate one too, with the goal of reaching a total of $16,000 in donations.

And what exactly is lipofuscin and why is it important? Here's a quote from the Laser Research Grant website:

Lipofuscin is a byproduct of metabolism - a type of indigestible junk that slowly builds up within (and outside) human cells throughout life. It is most commonly recognized as the "stuff" that gives age spots their color.

As I've discussed on this blog before, the accumulation of waste seems to be a key factor in age-related disease and, ultimately, death from old age. Any technological innovations that target this problem should be warmly welcomed by anyone who is not looking forward to spending their retirement years in poor health.

The technology proposed here is using laser pulses to destroy lipofuscin, also known as Selective Photothermolysis. The use of lasers, LEDs, and infrared light is nothing new in cosmetics, but in this case, the goal is more about reversing damage rather than just covering it up. The research will be conducted by Nason Schooler at the SENS Foundation Research Center in Tempe Arizona. Here's a quote about the study itself:

The current proposed research will use various pulsed laser treatments to investigate the effects on worm lifespan. Human cell culture models will also be used to investigate the dynamics of lipofuscin destruction microscopically in actual human cells.

For more details on how the study will be done, see this video presentation by Mr. Schooler. If you want to further discuss the research – or anything related to increasing lifespans – I highly recommend paying a visit to the imminst.org discussion forums (you can find me there as well, under the name JLL).

The matching grant is open until 17th August, so if you want to donate and get an extra bang for your buck, you have about two weeks (you can donate here). Currently, we're a few hundred short of $3,000, which does not include the matching sum from the Immortality Institute.

If you don't have hundreds of dollars to spend, that's okay – every bit helps. Also, the research will be conducted even if the goal is not reached (just on a lower budget), so donations will definitely not go to waste.

UPDATE: We gathered a whopping $10,077.80 in donations, which will be matched by $8,000 from the Immortality Institute and by $9,038.9 from private investor Peter Thiel for a grand total of $27,116.70. This means that the goal was more than reached, and the research will take place as intended. Big thanks to everyone who donated!

For more information on anti-aging, see these posts:

How to Live Forever: My 5 Steps to Immortality
Who Wants to Live Forever? Results from a Global Survey
Anti-Aging in the Media: New York Times on Caloric Restriction and Resveratrol
Biotechnology and the Future of Aging