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Comment by domenicd | Hacker News Reader

As someone already totally on board with ending aging, I found this article not terribly helpful.

My main questions are "what should I be doing right now to stop my own body from aging?" and "when will more stuff be available for me to do that is not currently?"

The article didn't help much in this regard. As far as I can tell, there are a number of clinical trials I should watch to see if those drugs work in humans? But nothing actually confirmed yet? I sure hope they do pan out, but given how many treatments in general medical science cross the mice/primate-to-human barrier, I'm not feeling optimistic.

Note that in the article itself, the first comment and its replies get into this a bit, and the author does advise taking certain drugs right now. Maybe I'll try to convince my doctor to prescribe metformin...

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Do you avoid sugar, fructose, calorie free sweeteners? Do you do strength training & cardio? Are you overweight? Is your waist to hip ratio ideal for your gender? Do you monitor your blood glucose? Get 8 hours of sleep consistently? Avoid stress? Do not live close to a highway / live in a place with high air quality? Get consistent screening for issues that your family has to catch them early? Get enough sunshine? Resolved depression or anxiety disorders? Have social connections you enjoy? Drink enough water? Do not smoke or drink alcohol? And sorry, the negatives of wine outweigh the benefits.

All of that is already hard to execute consistently in this society and is our most well known age reducing things we can do currently.

Edit: Some more: Do you fast semi regularly? Eat clean fish? Get outdoors in nature? Avoid allergens to stop triggering your immune system? Live in a dry and mold free house that still gets enough air circulation?

I do all that because I'm relatively wealthy and have plenty of time and freedom. And that does show. Aging still manifests as a slowly increasing suspectability to various damages like a minor allergy that puzzles doctors, minor hair loss, minor pain here and there, but this all adds up and wears the body out. The cause of aging must be a lot deeper than excessive consumption of sugar.

My point wasn't that I lack the knowledge of how to fight aging in these typical wealthy/time-rich-person ways. My point was that the article was not helpful in giving new information.

Well, am I the only one who can think of a better future where you can do/not do all those bad/good things and still live a long, healthy life?

This is a great list. What is the truth about wine?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_effects_of_wine

Red wine contains resveratrol that have anti-aging effect on mice. To get effective dose of resveratrol, you would have to drink unhealthy amount of wine, which beats the purpose. You may google David Sinclair talks, he talks about resveratrol, NMN and metformin.

> calorie free sweeteners

Could you please provide some evidence for how these impact longevity? Especially those from natural sources, e.g. stevia and monk fruit. Not trying to be snarky, just genuinely curious!

Well for one, natural sweeteners interfere with the bodies insulin response. I.e. it will overproduce in anticipation, but then your blood sugar drops into oblivion, because well, you didn't actually eat sugar. Is this bad? Probably not if you don't overuse them.

Besides that? I can tell you my body is very sensitive and artificial sweeteners (I literally tried all different kinds) make hell break lose in it, much worse than sugar could ever be. So perhaps they aren't such a great replacement after all? This usually applies to everything humans try to lazily swap out in foods. Oh so I am vegan? Keep these meat replicas coming, only they are like 100 times worse for your health than the real thing...

Thanks for the information. After a bit of research I found this study from May 2020:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7257251/

> Artificial sweeteners are related to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease: Microbiota dysbiosis as a novel potential mechanism

> Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a systemic and wide-spread disease characterized by accumulation of excess fat in the liver of people who drink little or no alcohol. Artificial sweeteners (ASs) or sugar substitutes are food additives that provide a sweet taste, and are also known as low-calorie or non-calorie sweeteners. Recently people consume increasingly more ASs to reduce their calorie intake. Gut microbiome is a complex ecosystem where 1014 microorganisms play several roles in host nutrition, bone mineralization, immune system regulation, xenobiotics metabolism, proliferation of intestinal cells, and protection against pathogens. A disruption in composition of the normal microbiota is known as ‘gut dysbiosis’ which may adversely affect body metabolism. It has recently been suggested that dysbiosis may contribute to the occurrence of NAFLD. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of ASs on the risk of NAFLD. The focus of this review is on microbiota changes and dysbiosis. Increasing evidence shows that ASs have a potential role in microbiota alteration and dysbiosis. We speculate that increased consumption of ASs can further raise the prevalence of NAFLD. However, further human studies are needed to determine this relationship definitively.

Add one more from a previous thread on similar topics; regularly donate blood. Forcing your marrows to create new blood often seems to have a great effect on joint and heart problems.

> when will more stuff be available for me to do that is not currently?

I like this list of drugs that are on the horizon: https://www.lifespan.io/road-maps/the-rejuvenation-roadmap/

(Phase 1-3 means it is being tested in humans.)

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