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Comment by fjfaase | Hacker News Reader

This is a result on mice and as far as I know, attempts to reproduce similar findings in humans have failed. So there it is to be seen if in this case it will give similar results in humans. The mouse models that are being used, often genetically engineerd to have a certain deposition for cognitive decline, might not suffer from the same type of decline that we see in humans. The drug thus might simply be a treatment for the type of genetic disorder that the mouse model has and not have any effect of the decline see in humans.

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"Mice lie and monkeys exaggerate" is a well known truism in research.

>I know, attempts to reproduce similar findings in humans have failed

Specifically with this drug? Source? Not snark; genuinely curious.

I followed research into medications for Alzheimer disease after my late wife was diagnosed with Early Onset Alzheimers Disease in 2006. Please have a look at the list of publications I have collected, including reports of promissing findings, most of which, to my knowledge, have not lead to any cure of the disease. https://www.iwriteiam.nl/AlzheimersDisease.html Search for 'mice'.

You're 100% right that no drugs have been recently approved by the FDA to help with Alzheimer's. But I think parent is right that they haven't tested ISRIB in people yet.

"attempts to reproduce similar findings in humans have failed"

CPH treatment may be useful in dementias of medium level in quite old groups of patients, since 48% of the verum group displayed improvements in the memory functions against 28% of the placebo group.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2506844/

"The drug thus might simply be a treatment for the type of genetic disorder that the mouse model"

Got any experimental or observational evidence for this hypothesis?

True, though also my amateur understanding is that ageing-related illness is better modelled that’s e.g. cancer. This is because ageing is a natural thing in all species, whereas for specific diseases, indeed you genetically engineered “mice with cancer”, which behaves then very differently.

Could be wrong ofc!

Words like "natural" can be tricky. Dying when struck by a bus is natural. That doesn't mean that busses are a natural feature of the world, or that you shouldn't look before crossing, or that an ER shouldn't make an effort to save the bus-stricken.

What do you make of the fact that connecting aged organs to young mice restores the organs? I think we should pursue drugs and treatments that improve function in aged populations, do you? Maybe ageing bodies just need to be occasionally cleaned out to restore healthy function.

Maybe it is "natural" to die, but unnecessary to suffer collapse along the way? Worst-case we have to compete in our careers and marathons with then healthy elderly and endure that same happy fate ourselves.

What I meant is, “cancer” mice are carefully bred / engineered to develop cancer. You can imagine their disease dynamics are very different from the normal population of mice who get cancer more rarely (and presumably are eaten first by something else).

Whereas aging, you just let the mice get old. They have “real”, “natural” old age, not an artificial one.

Age is not considered a disease because everyone does it. If we can learn to change things, such as reset the Horvath clock through epigenetic methylation hacks, or through other methods, then some day aging will be something that affects a minority of people and will be redefined as a disease.

I believe brain tumors and bone cancer are natural. Also being eaten alive by wolves is even more natural. The entire point of medicine is to get rid of nature’s influence on our vitality

Ha, I think I can read David Sinclair's words there! (not a bad thing at all IMHO)

@see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifespan:_Why_We_Age_%E2%80%93...

I follow his work and Dr. Yamanaka's work very closely, along with several other scientists working in this area. They have made substantial progress and there are some promising side benefits that have come from their work, including nerve damage repair, which has massive potential.

> ageing is a natural thing in all species

Not all [1].

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_immortality#Organ...

Yes, but this is still progress. Baby steps add up to miles.

Isn’t that cheating if the mice have to be engineered to display the experimental result? Like duh of course it’s going to work. News headline: engineered mouses exhibits characteristics it was engineered to exhibit also water is wet.

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