Drug perks up old muscles and aging brains | Hacker News Reader

Drug perks up old muscles and aging brains

sciencedaily.com

46 pointsjustonepost24 comments

No direct link to the University of California press release, which is the original source for this story, and no link to the underlying journal article published in a very obscure, low-impact-factor journal. It's a bit early to be discussing this on Hacker News, methinks. Anyway, several other participants here have previously identified ScienceDaily (a press release dissemination service, nothing more) as a poor source for submissions to Hacker News.[1]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8737181

I don't think it is fair to write-off research based on the journal it was published in.

I do think it's fair to call it out, though. Articles in second or third tier journals deserve higher levels of scrutiny. I'd rather see this replicated a couple of times before acting on it.

This is spot on and holds for all scientific research.

It absolutely is. Some journals have more peer review than others, and experts in the field typically know which ones will effectively rubber stamp anything that crosses their desks. That doesn't inherently make the research wrong, but it means the usual "this was published in a peer-reviewed journal" signaling carries no weight.

Peer review is less effective then you imagine and a highly political process. These experts usually have a vested interest in a certain viewpoint or line of research. I agree extra scrutiny always helps, but scientific consensus does not guarantee truth.

It's certainly not a guarantee. However, it does tend to provide a non-zero improvement in signal-to-noise.

That process can and should be drastically improved, though.

Well,

We should also look at the article under consideration. It seems to describe a molecule that might "cure" or ameliorate the effects of aging. Extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence but even more, there's a big "push" to have something like this published given that in there would be a tremendous amount of money interested in investing in a project that appears to have even a one percent chance of being that big.

For posterity: The paper is here- and is very readable:

http://www.impactjournals.com/oncotarget/index.php?journal=o...

The pdf: http://www.impactjournals.com/oncotarget/index.php?journal=o...

Thanks for sharing the link. I see that the organization of the paper is rather odd (compared to most scientific papers I read). I would have expected the methods to be described in more detail, nearer to the beginning of the paper, and for the results section to show up after the methods section. I am beginning to get a sense of why this paper was not published in a more notable journal.

I must very strongly disagree with you. ScienceDaily is as good an aggregator as you'll find. Sometimes, I'll even purposely seek out their write-ups on a topic because of one thing they almost always do, while almost everyone else doesn't: make it easy to find the source paper.

I rarely ever stop to read their replicated press releases—read the press release and read the article. They're basically the same thing. ScienceDaily just regurgitates source articles; any grievance one has with the article should instead be taken with the issuing University. It's why there's such high variance in the quality of ScienceDaily articles.

They provide a link here: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-05/uoc--dpu05121...

And provide a title: Journal Reference:

    David Schaffer et al. Systemic attenuation of the TGF-β pathway by a single drug simultaneously rejuvenates hippocampal neurogenesis and myogenesis in the same old mammal. Oncotarget, May 201

I find that an incredibly useful service since,often, even press releases can't be bothered to link to or at least, write the name of the paper under discussion.

I'm guessing that human trials are a decade away. :-( If something like this were released today it would save trillions in elderly care. This should be a priority for any government. No Manhattan project to accelerate delivery to market?

The Manhattan project and JKF's promise succeeded, but Nixon's promise to cure cancer didn't. Maybe we would have more luck if we pretend another nation is up to no good curing all diseases before the US.

It's a bit sad how far can one go under 'negative' pressure. Nothing happens unless there's a shiny carrot to eat.

You'd think that a promising new age-reversing technology would attract a lot of attention from the bio-technology sector. It would be the biggest pharmaceutical profit maker ever. You could charge anything for it - a million, a billion - and you'd get takers. I suspect that when something real comes along, we'll know it :)

"In 2005, Conboy and her colleagues infused old mice with blood from young mice -- a process called parabiosis -- reinvigorating stem cells in the muscle, liver and brain/hippocampus and showing that the chemicals in young blood can actually rejuvenate the chemical environment of aging stem cells."

Wasn't there some horror movie (or story...) about some guy (Dracula?) staying young by taking young people's blood transfusions? Or am I off base?

I've read it has been done many times throughout history. I found it funny that 21th century science is reaching folklore level of knowledge.

Image for the TGF-β pathway, in case you're into that kind of thing: https://www.qiagen.com/us/products/genes%20and%20pathways/pa...

The real question, assuming it works (because eventually something will): Will it be made illegal if people use it to "cheat" at sports?

I am not aware of anything that has been made illegal to the general public because it was used to gain an advantage in professional sports.

IIRC, steroids became a controlled substance in the US in response to steroid use in the Olympics.

But you can still get a prescription for them.

I guess maybe "forbidden" or "restricted" might be a better term than "illegal," but that also applies to other schedule III drugs.

Honestly, from the headline I legitimately thought the answer was going to be testosterone propionate or similar.

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