Hacker News Reader

Comment by pen2l | Hacker News Reader

There was this interesting article which talks about some scientists suggesting an upper age limit: http://www.nature.com/news/human-age-limit-claim-sparks-deba...

There are lots of disagreements and debate about the science of extending the life span, so there is probably not going to be much fruitful results in the near future. For the short term, you could extend your life by: 1) having a low calorie diet, 2) avoiding foods with high glycemic index, 3) exercise, 4) good sleep

1- http://tpx.sagepub.com/content/37/1/47

2- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24472560

3- https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/press-releases/2012/Physi...

4- http://www.journalsleep.org/viewabstract.aspx?pid=27780

View on HN

As far as I understand, this is just looking at demographic data, so probably if you do everything like exercise and diet right, and you have good genes, 115 is about the limit. It's basically saying that lifespan isn't going to continually drift upwards about that level with marginal improvements in living standards.

I don't see that we can get anything from that data which gives you clear answers about the potential for direct medical or pharmaceutical interventions to extend life.

> if you do everything like exercise and diet right, and you have good genes

and if you are female. Don't forget that females have a much higher survival rate over time than men.

This was very much a case of a researcher finding an unnecessarily provocative way of saying that medical technology to date hasn't done much for the processes important in late-stage aging. Which is true. There's only one therapy recently in clinical trials to clear the transthyretin amyloid that appears to be the major cause of death in the oldest people. No other therapy really even touches that form of age-related proteopathy. So the present situation is quite consistent with the appearance of a maximum to human life span, and will continue to be so until such time as the medical research and development community actually start to meaningfully address the forms of damage and waste accumulation that cause high late life mortality.

TTR amyloid most certainly is not the or even a major cause of death in older adults. While associated with cardiomyopathy and nephropathy and etc, it's not associated with coronary artery disease, stroke, or cancer - the main drivers of mortality (yes, even in the oldest people).

My understanding of the upper age limit is that it's the "natural" limit (i.e. if you don't take medicine and gene therapies and such). The goal of these new anti-aging therapies is to raise that natural limit.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com