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Comment by adamgordonbell | Hacker News Reader

Also this:

> The best reason to take multiple life extension supplements is to hedge our bets, because we really don’t know which of them are effective in humans.

And earlier:

> Personally, I take large doses of rapamycin 2 days a week, 8 weeks per year. For personalized recommendations, you can consult your favorite life extension doc.

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I recently saw a patient with overwhelming MRSA sepsis with multiple foci of infection including epidural abscess (around the spinal cord), and meningitis. This person was taking rapamycin presumably for "life extension" purposes. Almost certainly the immunosuppression from the rapamycin made the infection much worse.

I'd be very wary of taking an immunosuppressive drug as an otherwise healthy person for theoretical life extension properties.

Don't come and spoil our nice individualism with populational effects, you filthy rationalist !

What was the dose and frequency? I bet it was rather high. Or do you really think that 1 mg once per week will suppress the immune system?

Rapamycin modulates the immune system. I get that he's probably consulting a doctor but can you imagine taking this risk during a pandemic or even in older age? It makes me uncomfortable to play around with these very powerful drugs.

These roads people go down always arrive at eating collidal silver...

Get with the times, methylene blue is the new it girl.

As a party trick, it'll make people pee blue. But don't do this, it isn't safe. Especially without consent

The dosage for longevity is supposed to be low enough that this risk is minimized. Lots of things you do modulate your immune system (including e.g. exercise). It's a risk/reward thing, every time you get into your car you're also taking a longevity risk.

I think there are some proper human trials happening but the jury is still out.

> I think there are some proper human trials happening but the jury is still out.

That's exactly my point. No one really knows the risk that they are taking.

Surprisingly, many people seem to think that pushing a few random pills into a machine optimized over some million years of evolution will tune it so it works better. Go figure...

It works for the majority of modern medicine, so it's not all that black and white.

Yes, although even for modern medicine curative and preventative strategies are very distinct. Sure, they'll give you pills to compensate for a problem you already have. But there are few meds that protect you against stuff you'll maybe catch in the future. Vaccines and antibiotics are obvious examples, but I'm not aware of many others. The rest of preventative strategies overwhelmingly consists in correcting deficits or excesses (calories, vitamins, sleep, exercise etc.)

People are still getting nerve damage from too much vitamin B6 in energy drinks and vitamin supplements, and that's a well known and widely taken vitamin. The idea that you can take experimental drugs your entire life at little risk is optimistic.

I had no idea. At points in my life I consumed a lot of nutritional yeast.

How to hedge a bet 101:

1.you bet on risky stuff using something of value (money, health,...)

2.since you're unsure whether your bet will pay off, you bet some more on some other risky stuff, just to be sure.

BTW if you were wondering, of course all those proposed weird life-prolonging treatments are totally devoid of side-effects.

Oh there's plenty of people selling "side effect free" life extension supplements. But there's another name for side effect free medication: effect free.

Never put 100% of your savings into a single slot machine. Take 10% of your savings to 10 different casinos and distribute them to 10 slot machines in each, in order to hedge.

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