Evidence of Delayed Aging Among a National Sample of Americans | Hacker News Reader

Evidence of Delayed Aging Among a National Sample of Americans

sciencedaily.com

56 pointsmeri_dian24 comments

>"Using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) III (1988-19994) and NHANES IV (2007-2010), the researchers examined how biological age, relative to chronological age, changed in the U.S. while considering the contributions of health behaviors. Biological age was calculated using several indicators for metabolism, inflammation, and organ function, including levels of hemoglobin, total cholesterol, creatinine, alkaline phosphatase, albumin, and C-reactive protein in blood as well as blood pressure and breath capacity data."

>"While all age groups experienced some decrease in biological age, the results suggest that not all people may be faring the same. Older adults experienced the greatest decreases in biological age, and men experienced greater declines in biological age than females; these differences were partially explained by changes in smoking, obesity, and medication use, Crimmins and Levine explained."

Does that mean more medication use, or less?

Declines in smoking jumped to mind as a potential causal factor...

I think it's a big one, too. Seriously: smokers age hard and the more you smoke, the faster it happens. It's a crapload of oxidative stress combined with sometimes serious end-organ vascular consequences (to say nothing of the carcinogenic effects).

That said, I imagine it's also a marker for other types of behaviours likely to age people quicker.

Biological age, as opposed to chronological age, is driven by the intrinsic processes of primary aging, the accumulation of molecular damage outlined in the SENS rejuvenation research proposals, but also by the influence of the environment, secondary aging. The important contributions to secondary aging are excess visceral fat tissue as a consequence of diet, burden of infectious disease, lack of exercise, and smoking, acting through a range of mechanisms that overlap with the intrinsic processes of primary aging. There are others, but their effects are smaller and it is harder to see them in the data in comparison to the points above.

In the paper here, researchers make an effort to map recent changes in secondary aging, picking combinations of metrics from past data that might offer insight into the biological age of patients. I would say that there is little reason to expect primary aging to have altered significantly in the past few decades, given the landscape of medical technology, but it is certainly up for debate as to whether medications that control blood pressure and cholesterol levels might have some effect. They have certainly become more prevalent and effective over the time covered by the study data.

Overall this is an interesting exercise, but of little relevance to the future of aging. Gains from here on out will increasingly arise from the development of rejuvenation therapies that can repair the damage of primary aging, rather than from lifestyle improvements such as reduction in smoking or obesity, or forms of therapy that selectively, partially override downstream consequences of aging (e.g. blood pressure) without actually changing the primary aging damage that causes those problems. Greater potential gains in health and life span might be achieved through addressing primary aging; the scope of increased longevity through better lifestyle choices is far more limited. Our remaining healthy life span will thus be determined ever more by progress in rejuvenation biotechnology as time passes.

All I can do at the present time is focus on the things I can control, such as not treating my body like a dumpster and exercising regularly.

Real rejuvenative treatments for aging seem to be like nuclear fusion - promising but always 20 years away.

The research is also funded similarly, way below the level needed to make quick progress.

You would think countries with looming demographic crises due to aging populations (Japan comes to mind) would be pouring money into anti-aging research.

Wouldn't that make it worse? But I feel Japan will deal with the ageing population the way they deal with everything else. Glorious self-sacrifice for order and the group.

It'd make it better. Biologically old people are expensive, since aging tends to come with all sorts of horrible degenerative diseases. Reverse those and your old people are cheaper. If your treatments are really effective you might even be able to put them back to work.

Good luck explaining someone over eighty that thanks to this new drug they can go back to their exciting sarariman position.

Compared to dying of old age, I suspect most people would be fine with it.

Well, you don't have to force people to accept the treatment. Many will take it voluntarily, while some will choose to let "nature take its course."

Japan is (probably the only) country where a minister from the government is publicly saying to it's old population to "die faster already, stop wasting resources of the country". Somehow Japan's culture does not seem to be really fit for this kind of research ;).

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jan/22/elderly-hurry-...

I spent the past few years working for a cancer research startup (which unfortunately tanked), and the oncologists that I worked with were all skeptical about "anti-aging" research - apparently the thing that ages our cells is the same thing that slows down the spread of cancerous cells. Everything is pointing towards a choice between letting our cells age and dying relatively painlessly o fold age or halting aging and speeding up (a more painful death by) cancer.

If we had the technology to reprogram a cells DNA clock we might also have the technology to reprogram and repair DNA and prevent or even cure cancer.

This is just illogical. While it would be understandable to be skeptical of some specific form of anti-aging procedures or gene modifications, there is no way that science or especially anecdotal science can show why anti-aging measures would not work at all.

In your specific example, even if that was the case that the same mechanism was used in cancer cells and aging - the science would of course find a way to modify that mechanism (not just speed it up or slow it down), or add another extra mechanism which would alleviate the effects of speeding it up.

Body is a biological machine. When we finally understand this machine - we will be able to control such things as aging. Nature has already created animals which live for much longer than humans, which is a clear example that there are no fundamental reasons for why fighting aging could be impossible.

This is good, since it keeps up with our delaying of life milestones in many parts of the country. I'm 34, and about half of my friends are single and most don't have kids.

Since you are on HN, you and your friends most likely men. https://www.webmd.com/men/news/20060601/how-many-men-become-... Also, does living longer mean longer fertility window for women?

Your comment presumes those to be quasi-obligatory "milestones". Perhaps more and more people are choosing not to marry and choosing not to have kids at all. Both are consistent with rising overall prosperity.

I’d argue that it is consistent with the decadence and infantalization of certain parts of society.

World fertility rates are on decline for decades regardless of the economy situation or societal structure.

You believe that it is decadent not to marry and/or not to have children??

It must be all the preservatives :)

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