This has just popped up on the Libertarian Alliance Forum courtesy of Dr Chris R. Tame, who intends to live for ever and who therefore keeps an eye open for such things:
(7-3-03) BOSTON, Mass. – A new pill, developed by CereMedix, a biotech startup at Northeastern University, could restore the body’s natural defenses so drastically that people might routinely live to be a healthy 120 years old, researchers say.
The substance, which promotes the production of natural anti-oxidants, is set to be tested in two prescription forms, one designed to repair lung damage from smoking and the other to speed recovery from heart surgery.
In prescription form, the drug could have valuable applications for a wide range of ailments, including Alzheimer’s Disease, stroke and coronary damage, diabetes and virtually any illness that results from oxidative stress. In addition to the two prescription drugs in trial, CereMedix has another version in development: an over-the-counter supplement that would slow aging and increase energy by stimulating the production of natural anti-oxidants.
Etcetera etcetera, miracle miracle.
As one of those people who has no idea what a natural anti-oxidant is, I file this under: “This sounds marvellous – hope it works one day”. Although that bit about how they are threatening to repair the damage to lungs caused by smoking will already have made them very unpopular. Their laboratory has probably already been surrounded by baying anti-capitalist hooligans. Bad. But also good, because this will drag them into politics if they haven’t been already, and will turn them into devout believers in the Samizdata meta-context, if they aren’t already.
That aside, the worst news this could be is that yet another bunch of scientists got all excited and thought they’d achieved more than they had.
And the best news it could be is yet another triumph of capitalism in the making, and a truly spectacular one.
“Biomedic startup.” Whenever you hear of Americans using the word startup, you know that they are seeing dollar signs as well as the betterment of mankind. And what’s wrong with that, I’d like to know?
The usual burst of technologically well-informed comments would be very nice, to explain to us all whether there is anything to this or if it’s just hype and hot air.
I imagine what the medical people will say is that anti-oxidants definitely help slow or reverse ageing, but that there are other factors too.
No-one really knows what ages people or animals, and it is probably a complex cocktail of factors, of which this perhaps deals with one (the “free radicals”).
My hunch is that stem-cell regeneration and getting cells to repair their own telomeres (telomeres are like bootlace tips that stop the bootlace or DNA strip from fraying with each copying operation – made up of usefully useless dummy DNA which needs to be replaced as it gets used up) will go rather more to the essence of things – but I haven’t a clue really, of course.
Sorry, no technobabble to add, though I look forward to the smart readers here to add something.
But, on the politics of this. Does anyone know if any major politicians in the U.S or UK or Europe have made any forward looking comments about the impact of the general advancements in medicine that are already coming down the pipe. I don’t have anything to back this up, but this drug, among many other techniques/medical technologies could extend the average lifespan by as much as a decade or even longer on average in fairly short order (say, the next 2 decades).
I mean, this type of technology changes the entire equation for the welfare state, views torwards retirement age & income. I’m just curious if any major elected official has started to ponder this stuff, and not just from a Social Security will be insolvent point of view but a genuine re-examination views & policies towards the “elderly” (I use quotes since how that’s defined could change too.)
The problem of human mortality is essentially one of accurate reproduction. Cancer and the other diseases anti-oxidants help to combat are excellent examples of what can happen when cellular reproduction goes wildly wrong, but even going a little wrong causes steady deterioration toward death. And, as we’ve known ever since Xerox broke 9.75, reproduction cannot be made reliably perfect.
However…
There’s an unexplored strategy, along the lines of the great sculptor’s instructions to his apprentice about how to carve an elephant from a block of marble: just chip away everything that doesn’t look like an elephant. When nanotechnology gets good enough that we can write checksums into the unused areas of the chromosome, and then read those codes back to determine whether a cell has been accurately reproduced, we’ll be almost all the way there.
“These are exciting times.” — Tank, from The Matrix.
Only if people routinely work through a healthy 94 years old. As someone who glances at the Extropian newsletter and home page from time to time, this is nice news, but get back to me in ten years. I’m also excited by the progress being made right now in artificial eye research. I’m counting on those kinds of things to enhance and extend my own life.
But like mark, I don’t have a clue about the meat of the science involved.
But politically and societally, is this desirable? I don’t know, and I’m not going to get into that (unless someone else starts the ball rolling).
I also don’t think it’s going to be as easy as just taking your special Centrum with your morning OJ. I’m reminded of a story my father (a physician) tells. He was at some seminar or class in which rising cancer rate statistics were being discussed. At one point, he made the comment, “well, something has to kill them.”
He describes the leader of the group becoming irate. After a brief exchange, dad rephrased the comment as a question: “do you not think something has to kill them?”
As we cure this, this, that and the other thing, something else has to take over responsibility for all the deaths that aren’t occurring because of other causes. All the percentage shares of death causes have to add up to 100%, right?
What I’m trying to say is three-fold.
1. They may think they can extend *normal* life expectancies to 120, but I have a feeling other causes of death will naturally arise to temper that enthusiasm.
2. They still haven’t cured the existing diseases that are the major killers today. If they effectively eliminate (or preempt) “natural causes” as a cause of death, watch cancer, heart disease, and cerebrovascular diseases climb significantly higher as causes in terms of percentages.
3. The title of the post is interesting, because these “pills” don’t confer immortality. But if we have folks regularly living to 120 and some reaching 140, the push for *true* immortality, for better or worse, will continue. 120 just won’t be enough. Let’s go further! Faster! Stronger! Better!
Actually, I contradicted myself in #2 of my post. My first contention was really sort of that we *don’t* die of “natural causes”–there’s always actually some cause. But then in #2 I said that they could eliminate “natural causes”, which is inconsistent with the rest of my comment.
Kevin
Don’t worry about contradicting yourself. You’re probably just getting old.
I’m certain of it! I have to sit a might closer to the screen; I get fatigued a bit easier; the joints ache fractionally harder; and as I demonstrated here, I get my “senior moments” once in a while.
Unfortunately, I’m only a “senior” in college!
Kevin, cancer, heart disease and things of such ilk have ALREADY been rising as a cause of death for quite a while, as things like “infected cut on hand” no longer kill you. Aren’t antibiotics great? Too bad their over use is now breeding super-bugs though. Before the 20th Century, things like cancer killing you were relatively rare, percentage wise, compared to now. Most people didn’t live long enough to get it!
When they start getting closer to one year of lifespan increase per year elapsed is when the social things start getting REALLY dicey.
Yah, that’s exactly what I mean, and my father’s point in the conference he was at. They were looking at rising cancer death rates as a *bad* thing. Dad pointed out that rising cancer death rates mean “falling rates of death by other means”, which when you take a long view, is a good thing.
If we accept that organisms are just ‘survival machines’ for our genes, then it seems there is some evolutionary advantage to machines that die. Its not obvious what this is, but it could be as simple as its more expensive to repair bodies than it is to make new ones (there is likely other factors at work).
In evolutionary terms finite term organisms, i.e. ones pre-programmed to die, appeared relatively late on the scene. Many organisms are not programmed to die and potentially can live for ever, such as some kinds of fungi.
It seems reasonable that pre-programmed dieing has a fairly simple unlying genetic mechanism, and once discovered, can be turned off. I am confident this will be discovered it the next few years.
Of course, this will not affect infectious diseases and may have some unknown relationship with cancers.
Anti-oxidants interfere with processes that result in aging (i.e. death). If we can turn off the mechanism at source then it becomes unecessary to interfere with the mechanisms.
“If we accept that organisms are just ‘survival machines’ for our genes, then it seems there is some evolutionary advantage to machines that die. Its not obvious what this is, . . .”
Since the purpose of evolution is to refine the survivability of the organism, the purpose of death is to get the older genomes out of the gene pool so they aren’t constantly reinjecting themselves into the current, more refined gene pool.
When you look at population cycles in wild animals, you see exactly what you would expect to see if you were designing a system to refine a genetic formula. These populations are very rarely stable, and for many animals go through a boom and bust cycle, where the bust kills around 80 – 90% of the population. First you build up a big population of test subjects, then you test them to destruction, use the 10% hardiest as your “seed” for the next round, repeat ad infinitum.
Phil and T.Hartin’s points are spot on about the “advantage” of being preprogrammed to die not necessarily being an advantage for us, and so being potentially switch-offable.
I must just quibble pedantically with one phrase though – evolution has no purpose. Creatures don’t evolve to develop fitter populations or genes – fitter populations or genes (with respect to conditions under which the organisms have to live) are just our names for whatever survive.
Since the purpose of evolution is to refine the survivability of the organism, the purpose of death is to get the older genomes out of the gene pool so they aren’t constantly reinjecting themselves into the current, more refined gene pool.
T. Hardin: This sounds like the standard explanation which frankly I don’t think holds water. The notion that genes will ‘voluntarily’ eliminate themselves in preference to some ‘hoped for’ improvement in future generations is a non-starter if we accept evolution. Its just projecting parental altruism onto our genes.
Not neccesarily. If there truly is an advantage to an alteration that reduces lifepan and so increases the rate of change, then organisms with that alteration will out-do their longer lived competitors. What is good for the individual is not always good for the species, and vice versa.
Just take a look at how fast various micro-organisms and viruses can adapt to new challenges or hosts; they have a very short life cycle. So do lots of insects, etc.
This sounds like a scam.
For example, Alzheimer’s Disease is not believed to be in any way related to oxidative stress.
In general, if someone tells you he has a miracle pill that can treat a bunch of apparently unrelated diseases he is almost always a fool or a liar.
Alzheimer’s certainly has been shown to be one of many neurodegenerative diseases associated with oxidative stress.
Studies include:
Rassmussen, L and Singh, K, Genetic integrity of mitochondrial genome, in “Mithochondrial DNA Mutations in Aging, Disease and Cancer” (K Singh, Ed.), Springer, NY
Richter, C, Reactive oxygen and DNA damage in Mitochondria, Mutat. Res. 1992; 275:249-255
Singh, K and Luccy, B, Mitochondrion, Oxidative Stress and Mitochondrial Diseases, in “Oxidative Stress and Aging,” Richard Cutler, Henry Rodriguez, Eds., World Scientific, NJ.
The premise that the diseases you mention are unrelated, is an incorrect one. Numerous studies have shown that the body’s production of its natural antioxidants decreases with age. As a result, numerous ROS-related diseases occur. A plethora of studies now link oxidative stress to almost 200 age-related diseases.
This antioxidant up-regulation product is indeed real and supportable by scientific evidence conducted by highly-respected independent laboratories.
The product candidate is being taken through clinical trials to market by CereMedix’s affiliate company, Lifeline Nutraceuticals.
Website is http://www.lifelinenutracetuicals.com