Status of Research on Human Aging

Longevity is the new alternative energy
With $10m quickly raised by the Methuselah Foundation, VCs just beginning to see the opportunity and continually soaring healthcare costs, the longevity market could easily become as big as the alternative energy/climate change solutions market has become now.

Longevity research status
Grossly generalizing, the main focus in aging research is figuring out how to get processes that already occur, in the young and in cancer for example, to occur at other times, in the old. The optimum approach may include both reverse engineering and forward engineering in the form of synthetic biology as has been successful in other biological research areas like gene synthesis.

Aging is multidisciplinary, comprising at minimum the study of stem cells, immunology, cancer, DNA damage, tissue engineering, genetic engineering, regenerative medicine and micronutrients.

A comprehensive collection of anti-aging research findings was presented at the Aging 2008 conference June 27-29 at UCLA. The current developmental stage of aging research is early, perhaps in the second inning. Groundwork is being laid, phenomena are being documented, understanding of general mechanisms is sought, existing processes are being enumerated and early cycles of testing have begun primarily on flies and mice.

The seven primary causes of aging are DNA mutations in the cell nucleus and mitochondria, junk that builds up inside and outside cells, cells sticking together and cell loss and death. These are described at length, together with potential solutions, in aging research pioneer Aubrey de Grey’s book, Ending Aging and in the journal Rejuvenation Research. De Grey’s organization, the Methuselah Foundation, provides grants to anti-aging researchers. Some of the freshest thinking so far has included biomedical remediation, therapeutic organisms purpose-catalyzed in the body and the possibility of removing the overly-prone-to-damage mitochondrial DNA.

Generalized summary of Aging 2008 research findings:

• Applying (non-individual specific) substances from the young to the old appears to work
• With aging, not only does "good stuff" (cells, processes, etc.) decline but "bad stuff" also arises
• The quality of the biological environment facilitates or inhibits activity and repair
• Treatments may be most effective when begun in youth or middle age
• The goal is to extend healthspan not just lifespan

DIY biohacking and the cocktail problem
Every bit as interesting as the scientific talks were the informal discussions of the wide range of interventions, treatments, supplements and other anti-aging remedies in use by conference participants. The cocktail problem is how multiple remedies taken in concert may be impacting each other. Never has there been a market with such demand and so few offerings as for anti-aging remedies.

MindModding

Many human characteristics are normally distributed including height, weight, intelligence, nose size, irritability, friendliness, compassion and hormone levels.

If people could choose…
If individuals were given the ability to choose the settings of their personal characteristics and analytes by using an analog of the Edit Preferences menu slider, either on a one-time or ongoing basis, what would they be likely to do? Would most people opt to stay the same, move closer to the median or experiment by selecting an outlier position?

The drive to normalize, people choose brown…

Despite the current demonizing and illegality of human enhancement in athletics, the practice is widespread. In other venues, there are also observable examples of the embracement of mindmodding and Stephen Jay Gould seems to be wrong again, this time in the claim that the median is not the message. Where selection possibilities exist, so far individuals have been reaching for the deep herd in the middle of the bell curve, often acquiescing unthinkingly to corporate marketing.

1. Hormone replacement therapy
Prescriptions continue to increase for both estrogen replacement therapy and testosterone replacement therapy despite medical studies indicating increased heart disease and other risks for women and no realized physical benefit of testosterone therapies for men. As they have for eons, people will pay for and take health risks to “enhance” their physical state to some perceived ideal, even when contradictory medical evidence exists.

It seems likely that more hormone management therapies with improved risk and efficacy profiles will be offered over time. One example is those of Dr. Louann Brizendine’s Women's Mood and Hormone Clinic at UCSF which are focused on ongoing state management for all ages. Hormone management such as continually suppressed menstruation can be useful in normalizing personal levels during the course of the day, week or month, diminishing rather than enhancing the effects of hormones.

Distinctly different flavors of anti-aging can be envisioned: the disastrous scenario of senescent male heads of state running around with the testosterone levels of 20 year olds hastening existential risk for all of humanity contrasted against the beneficent scenario of Aubrey de Grey’s mitochondrial DNA mutation restoration, Alzheimer’s plaque remediation biotechnology and other SENS approaches.

2. Virtual Worlds
Another example of what people actually do when given the opportunity to modify physical characteristics is visible in the thousands of avatars residing in the virtual world Second Life. All aspects of avatar representation can be modified, however, a huge cluster of brown (e.g.; average) can be seen in the age, height and muscle tone of avatars, with a much smaller cluster for furries and a few longtail outliers for unique appearance.

Should people be allowed to choose…
As long as personal characteristic modification is not injurious of the self or others, it would be difficult to conclude other than that it is an acceptable personal freedom. The only tempering aspect seems to be the usual income dispersion argument as only higher income tiers can initially afford these therapies as they are not covered by insurance. The world of the future will probably be like virtual worlds, with setting modification built into or adjunct to physical corporeality.

Is there any role for regulation?
What if someone wanted to play with a very high aggression setting? People can actually do this now except that cultural and societal norms prevent more divergent behavior. In fact, the ability to manage chemical and personality settings would vastly improve communicating with others and being productive in a group setting for some people. What about experimenting with and getting stuck in a lethal cocktail of depression, low esteem and remorse? Default resets would probably kick in before real harm could occur and these types of experiments could be interesting virtual reality experiences for individuals and a useful neurological tool for researchers.

Cure vs. enhancement and the evolving health system
A fundamental change is occurring as the role of the medical industry and medical professional is shifting from curing health impairments to providing enhancements. As enhancement therapies proliferate, there is a clear opportunity for new fields of enhancement counseling, customizing and habituation training to develop.