New longevity drug mimics caloric restriction in mice | Hacker News Reader

New longevity drug mimics caloric restriction in mice

blog.wired.com

10 pointssah10 comments

This is about resveratrol, which isn't a new drug. It's been in and out of the news for quite a few years now. The article is a little confusing, but it seems that the current research has linked it to a mechanism which is also involved in the "starving mice live longer" phenomenon. That's definitely good news, scientifically.

But the "wonder drug" theme is a little overstated. There have been lots of teasingly good results with this drug in mice over the last decade or so, but we're still waiting for a pharmaceutical to result.

This article is confused about resveratrol. The important thing is that there is a super-resveratrol undergoing clinical trials, which they mention at the end. It's something like 10,000 times stronger than resveratrol.

Resveratrol itself is not economical to take in such high, effective doses.

This is not true - I have been taking 500mg for a year. 500mg is about equivalent to the dosage that they have given to mice in similar studies (per kg).

Aubrey de Grey has argued that caloric restriction can probably only extend life in humans by ~2 years. The idea is that it's not a percentage of lifespan that you can gain, but rather a fixed amount of time. He says the data supports his interpretation, and that it makes sense evolutionarily because extending lifespan in response to low calories is mostly useful if you can get through a short famine and get a chance to mate that would have otherwise been lost. If it's a long famine that's a much harder problem for evolution to solve and there's no evidence it is solved.

Therefore caloric restriction probably isn't very important. Does anyone know otherwise?

Be wary of evolutionary arguments. It is possible to rationalize any current behavior/biological trait based on a made up evolutionary theory. It is also easy to forget that the human body is a very imperfect system (and therefore should be open to hacking).

If he has data, that is another thing, but so far it seems the research really isn't good enough (on humans) to do anything more than conjecture.

Evolution does not create features by accident. I'm not proposing a trait. I'm proposing a lack of a trait (built-in long term life extension feature in humans), which is very different than proposing a trait, and wins by the default unless someone has an argument to the contrary.

Traditional evolutionary theory says that features are created at random, but they are not kept by accident.

I thought you said this was Aubrey's theory, not yours. Perhaps you should quote him or rephrase. Can you also site how lack of default traits also 'win by default' in evolutionary theory?

It was Aubrey's theory first. It's also my theory, currently.

You are mistaken about evolution. There are random mutations, but those are not complex features, they are tiny changes. It takes many mutations to build up to a major feature.

Example of "lack of trait" winning by default: might humans have the ability to breath the air on Mars? no. why? there's no reason that feature would have been created. you don't have to be unsure whether they might or might not; unless there's an argument on the other side, the "no breathing on mars trait" wins by default.

Is he still following the regimen, anyway? I must say Aubrey de Grey is the thinnest TED speaker I've ever seen, and not by a small margin, either. The very first thing I thought once I heard him start talking was "caloric restriction".

He is not a caloric restrictionist.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com