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Comment by bthornbury | Hacker News Reader

My interpretation:

Death rates increase every year due to naturally occurring mechanisms in the body. Consider those mechanisms as a function with the body as a parameter and the output as a more aged body (or rather a body with higher probability of failure).

If the body reaches a point where the death rate ceases to increase year per year, it would suggest that those same naturally occuring mechanisms, thought of as a function, approaches some asymptote.

Note this doesn't necessarily mean you stop aging (in appearance), just that your body's rate of failure no longer increases. This suggests that if the reasons for failure can be treated properly, perhaps the body can remain in that equilibrium state indefinitely.

This study provides some preliminary evidence that such an asymptote may exist in the body's natural mechanisms. Both controversial and exciting. Worth exploring further.

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Exactly. And the really cool thing is "Why?"

Because there are essentially two things that kill you. Either you die of something you get, or you die because your body wears out (as others have pointed out, we know body systems wear and become less effective with aging).

Therefore, if mortality stops increasing with respect to age at a certain point, but we know the body is accumulating additional wear that makes it less resilient, there must also be a corresponding decrease in mortality risk with respect to random things killing you.

So essentially, if you're 100 already... you might have a statistically smaller risk to die from heart disease, cancer, etc than someone who is only 92.

It kind of sounds like a battle between repair and failure. And at a certain point they reach an equilibrium. Ie repair stops declining.

> Therefore, if mortality stops increasing with respect to age at a certain point, but we know the body is accumulating additional wear that makes it less resilient, there must also be a corresponding decrease in mortality risk with respect to random things killing you.

Agreed. I assume older people are receiving higher levels of care, and therefore have a lower risk of dying from random things.

For example, someone age 100 has a small chance of falling and receiving a life threatening injury when they go to get a glass of water from the kitchen. Someone age 115 might have a smaller risk, because they're more likely to be in a wheelchair, and therefore will not stumble and fall. Do they need to change a light bulb? The 100 year old might try to stand on a chair and risk falling. The 115 year old will probably have full-time care, and push a button to alert someone else about the light bulb. Older people usually travel less often, so their chance of dying in a car crash starts to decrease. They're no longer diving with sharks, so shark attack deaths decrease. They're less likely to be outside in a thunderstorm, so lightning related deaths decrease.

Some of those examples are a little silly, but I think the idea is right. When you go from 100 to 115, you decrease your risk of dying from random things (usually because you're no longer doing those things), but you increase your risk of dying from age related factors. These two cancel each other out, and the chance of dying on any given year appears equal. This would mean the study is wrong, and there is a limit to longevity.

> Note this doesn't necessarily mean you stop aging (in appearance), just that your body's rate of failure no longer increases. This suggests that if the reasons for failure can be treated properly, perhaps the body can remain in that equilibrium state indefinitely.

So sooner you start the "treatment" the better as it is more fun to stop aging around 30 than 70 (which currently is already a thing, people aging a lot better than their parents).

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