Wednesday, April 24, 2024

A Science-Based Review of the World’s Best-Selling Book on Aging

 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9669175/

Members of the general public and investment community have caught the longevity bug and appear to believe that major breakthroughs have been made in extending human lifespan

Lifespan, a book by Harvard scientist David Sinclair, has become an influential source of misinformation on longevity, featuring counterfactual claims about longevity genes being conserved between yeast and humans, the existence of supposed activators of these genes, and claimed successful age reversal in mice based on partial reprogramming

The book has popularized a stack of drugs and supplements with significant potential to harm the general public

The reviewer suggests that scientists and physicians emphasize to the general public that aging is known to be a highly polygenic developmental process and that the most important things that people can do to age better are to maintain high physical and mental activity

6 comments :

  1. As the old saying goes:
    Eat oat bran, exercise daily, die anyway.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We're all going to die, eventually. But we'd rather have that occur later, than occur sooner.

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    2. Lots of folks say that but here's a value question:
      Would one prefer to die at 70 suddenly and without suffering while still in great shape or at 90, demented and forgotten for 15 years in a nursing home?

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    3. I believe that there are more possible outcomes, other than the two scenarios that you presented.

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    4. Correct. Those are the two extremes.

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    5. Then the question is skewed.

      Delete

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