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Comment by vinutheraj | Hacker News Reader

Those pills those guys were taking ... they think that they will make 'em live forever ?

No, but the pills are supposed to give them better ods to live until 2040-2050 where they think the Singularity will allow them to transcend their human bodies.

Other people prefer go and live in Florida or Spain :-)

This article in Wired goes into a little detail about his pill regiment: http://www.wired.com/medtech/drugs/magazine/16-04/ff_kurzwei...

Too bad no medical studies support the idea that taking vitamins improves health: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/20/news-keeps-getting-...

"no medical studies"? That seems like a very interesting claim, but the article you linked doesn't support it much, instead just listing a few studies which found that specific vitamins failed to improve health in specific areas.

Have you heard of any? I haven't.

If taking vitamins regularly was something that improved our health, we should be able to measure that. But as far as I know, we haven't been able to.

This study might be promising: http://www.landmarkstudy.com/

"Usage patterns, health, and nutritional status of long-term multiple dietary supplement users: a cross-sectional study"

It was conducted by researchers from the University of California (Berkeley)

What about the case where someone has an otherwise undiagnosed vitamin deficiency? E.g. B12 supplements to combat the neurological effects (like depression, distractibility) of B12 deficiency?

Sure. Vitamins fix vitamin deficiencies. That's a special case, and it does not apply to the rest of us. In fact, too much vitamins can damage health.

You could argue that breathing more air improves heath ... because it works for people who are underwater.

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