Factor X have we finally found the fountain of Youth?

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williatw
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Re: Factor X have we finally found the fountain of Youth?

Post by williatw »

Diogenes wrote:I just wish to say I appreciate your effort in posting this information in here.
Thank you! Hard to believe I have been posting these items here in this particular category for 7 Years?! Just doesn't seem that long somehow but that's what the date on my first post works out to; my how time flies...

williatw
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Re: Factor X have we finally found the fountain of Youth?

Post by williatw »

Adult Stem Cells Now the ‘Gold Standard’
By Wesley J. Smith March 15, 2019 2:40 PM


Image
(Luisa Gonzalez/REUTERS)

Peer-reviewed, published successful results abound, with numerous papers now documenting therapeutic benefit in clinical trials and progress toward fully tested and approved treatments. Phase I/II trials suggest potential cardiovascular benefit from bone marrow–derived adult stem cells and umbilical cord blood–derived cells

The superiority of adult stem cells in the clinic and the mounting evidence supporting their effectiveness in regeneration and repair make adult stem cells the gold standard of stem cells for patients.


During the Great Embryonic Stem Cell Debate, circa 2001-2008, I watched “the scientists” blatantly lie about the supposedly low potential for adult stem cells and the CURES! CURES! CURES that were just around the corner from embryonic stem cells. You remember: Children would soon be out of their wheelchairs and Uncle Ernie’s Parkinson’s would soon be a disease of the past. The pro-ESCR campaign was filled with so much disinformation and hype — willingly swallowed by an in-the-tank media — all in a corrupt attempt to overturn the minor federal funding restrictions over ESCR imposed by the president, and to hurt President Bush politically.

After the Bush presidency, the issue became quiescent. And now, it turns out that the clinical advances that have been made are not from embryonic stem cells.

During the debate, David A. Prentice — a stem-cell researcher and my good friend — took a sabbatical from his Indiana State University professorship to tout the great potential of adult stem cells (and to oppose human cloning) around the world. He became quite prominent in the debate — for which he was punished by his university’s administration. For example, despite receiving teaching awards, he was moved from graduate classes and his lab privileges were curtailed.

Prentice eventually headed for The Swamp to continue his advocacy. He is now with the Charlotte Lozier Institute, where he has continued to track and educate about stem-cell science and engage policy controversies. Prentice just published a major peer-reviewed article in the science journal Circulation Research, in which he details the amazing successes of adult stem-cell research — demonstrating that the ESCR hypers had it wrong and he had it right. Prentice outlines the many problems that make embryonic stem cells “ill suited for clinical use,” including the difficulty of “differentiating and integrating” ES cells into the body, the problem that these cells “have shown evidence of causing arrhythmia,” the potential to cause tumors, and “immunogenicity,” in real people’s language, rejection caused by triggering the body’s immune response.

In contrast, ethical stem cells have had excellent successes. For example, “induced pluripotent stem cells,” which can be made from normal skin cells, are splendid for use in cell modeling and drug testing.

But Prentice’s primary focus is on adult stem cells, often taken from donor bone marrow or a patient’s own body. They have also not advanced as fast as was hoped, but they are progressing into clinical uses and human studies. From, “Adult Stem Cells:”


Not only do adult stem cells carry no ethical baggage regarding their isolation, their practical advantages over pluripotent stem cells have led to many current clinical trials, as well as some therapies approved through all phases of Food and Drug Administration testing.

Peer-reviewed, published successful results abound, with numerous papers now documenting therapeutic benefit in clinical trials and progress toward fully tested and approved treatments. Phase I/II trials suggest potential cardiovascular benefit from bone marrow–derived adult stem cells and umbilical cord blood–derived cells.

Striking results have been reported using adult stem cells to treat neurological conditions, including chronic stroke. Positive long-term progression-free outcomes have been seen, including some remission, for multiple sclerosis, as well as benefits in early trials for patients with type I diabetes mellitus and spinal cord injury. And adult stem cells are starting to be used as vehicles for genetic therapies, such as for epidermolysis bullosa.

If this progress had been derived from embryonic stem cells, the headlines would have been deafening. The cheering from the media would include anchors dancing with pom-poms! But the media isn’t much interested in reporting adult stem-cell successes prominently because doing so doesn’t promote favored ideological agendas. That’s not good journalism.

Prentice concludes:

The superiority of adult stem cells in the clinic and the mounting evidence supporting their effectiveness in regeneration and repair make adult stem cells the gold standard of stem cells for patients.

That’s excellent news for everyone, and may it continue.

But as we benefit from these ethical treatments, the next time ideologically driven scientists, bioethicists, and their media water carriers seek to drive public opinion on scientific issues in a partisan direction by deploying the propaganda tools of hype, exaggeration, and castigation of those who espouse heterodox views, remember how the Great Stem Cell Debate turned out.


https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/a ... -standard/

https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10 ... 118.313664

williatw
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Re: Factor X have we finally found the fountain of Youth?

Post by williatw »

Delivery of 45 Age Reversing Gene Therapies at Once is Under Peer Review

Brian Wang | January 12, 2019




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George Church revealed progress on aging reversal using gene therapies. They have delivered 45 gene therapies to provide aging reversal. They find the combined treatment is effective against obesity, diabetes, osteoarthritis, cardiac damage and kidney disease.

At 32:00-33:30 minutes George Church specifically describes delivering 45 age reversing gene therapies to treat multiple age related diseases.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0HMp3YYosI

Rejuvenate Bio has been using the aging reversal therapies on dogs for almost all of 2018.

George Church expects to get the treatment to people around 2025.

George gave eight examples of aging reversal that have been published and reported by various researchers. Some researchers have used small molecules and others used other methods.

He wanted to show that these are real treatments that dramatically reverse aging damage.

Effective treatment and reversal of obesity, diabetes, cardiac, arthritis and kidney damage could boost the lifespan of many people and make 90-95 life expectancy possible. Fixing all aging damage would put us toward a path of extreme longevity.



https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2019/01/d ... eview.html

kurt9
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Re: Factor X have we finally found the fountain of Youth?

Post by kurt9 »

You guys are behind the curve with regards to the adult stem cell and iPSC thing.

Do an internet search on "invivo cellular reprogramming" and you'll see where this stuff is going.

williatw
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Re: Factor X have we finally found the fountain of Youth?

Post by williatw »

More from Bill Andrews:
Chatting with Multimillionaire Molecular Biologist Dr.Bill Andrews


Published on Mar 7, 2019


“Bill Andrews, Ph.D., its founder and CEO, is a scientist, athlete and executive who is known for pushing the envelope and for challenging convention. Featured in numerous publications, TV shows and documentaries on the topic of life extension, Bill Andrews is one of the principal discoverers of both the RNA and protein components of human telomerase, and was awarded 2nd place as National Inventor of the Year in 1997.He earned his Ph.D. in Molecular and Population Genetics at the University of Georgia in 1981 and served as Senior Scientist at Armos Corporation and Codon Corporation, as Molecular Biology Director at Berlex Biosciences and Geron Corporation as well as Director of Technology Development at EOS Biosciences. On top of his in-depth experience, Bill is also the inventor of 50+ U.S. Patents issued on telomerase and author of numerous scientific research studies published in peer reviewed scientific journals. “ (Sierra Sciences)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aua5NC_ztnw

To the time constrained; he mentions toward the beginning that the previously mentioned first trial of his (Telomerase therapy) on an Alzheimer’s patient has been pushed back until first of May or so of this year. More delays not surprising from him at this point, however something hopeful on a related front. At around 07:41 in the clip he says the treatment would cost around 400K; this is considerably cheaper he says then the 3 million he was saying it would have caused some months ago. According to him they have made great progress in lowering cost; not that much more expensive at this point then what we do now to treat the diseases of aging. How much does cancer/heart disease/Alzheimer’s treatments cost in aggregate over a lifetime now? To say nothing of nursing home care? And you end up dying anyway? Versus 400K to make you young/healthy/continually working tax paying again. And that is even assuming no economies of scale to lower costs further once production is ratcheted up.

williatw
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Re: Factor X have we finally found the fountain of Youth?

Post by williatw »

Still more from Bill Andrews:

Episode 56: ​Telomeres, Senolytics, and an Anti-Aging Experiment: Bill Andrews of Sierra Sciences

Published on Apr 30, 2019


Dr. Bill Andrews is the Founder and CEO of Sierra Sciences, a company focused on finding ways to extend human lifespan and health span through telomere maintenance. Telomeres are found at the tips of our chromosomes and have been shown, in thousands of scientific peer-reviewed studies, to be the clock of aging in humans. When telomeres get shorter, we get older, and our health declines.

Sierra Sciences does not do research on animals, choosing to focus primarily on humans. Nonetheless, other labs using Sierra Sciences technologies have shown that lengthening telomeres, using the enzyme telomerase, can provide significant health benefits including reversal of aging and declining health in every way imaginable. An interview by Diane Sawyer describes the results from an animal study done at Harvard. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Np7cR.... Bill is presently conducting a clinical study on humans using the same technologies applied successfully to animals. The first patient is scheduled to be treated in early May of 2019. See http://www.libellagt.com


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MlJzZcjB2I

kurt9
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Re: Factor X have we finally found the fountain of Youth?

Post by kurt9 »

I am not an advocate of telomere elongation as a method of anti-aging life extension. In fact, I think its the wrong course of action. I think artifical telomere elongation will create more problems down the road.

Telomere shortening is part of apoptosis which, in turn, is a part of autophagic process by how the body rids itself of damaged cells. I believe a far better approach to life extension is to repair or replace damaged mtDNA and to do invivo partial cellular reprogramming of the body.

williatw
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Re: Factor X have we finally found the fountain of Youth?

Post by williatw »

kurt9 wrote:I am not an advocate of telomere elongation as a method of anti-aging life extension. In fact, I think its the wrong course of action. I think artifical telomere elongation will create more problems down the road.

Telomere shortening is part of apoptosis which, in turn, is a part of autophagic process by how the body rids itself of damaged cells. I believe a far better approach to life extension is to repair or replace damaged mtDNA and to do invivo partial cellular reprogramming of the body.

For what is worth Bill Andrews disagrees; he doesn't think that telomere lengthening through telomerase causes cancer either for instance. Says there has never been proof of such though it is widely reported otherwise. He also seems to feel it might actually treat/reverse Alzheimer as well; his first test patient being treated early this month (he says) suffers from advanced Alzheimer/dementia. Admit I am skeptical as well how lengthening telomeres in Brain/CNS cells would stop/reverse this since they don't divide much but he also thinks that maybe memories in such cases aren't so much destroyed as rendered inaccessible in sufferers. He sites such indications from mice treatment. We shall hopefully see; interesting link nonetheless.

kurt9
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Re: Factor X have we finally found the fountain of Youth?

Post by kurt9 »

I think Bill Andrews is right that telomere elongation in and of itself will not increase cancer rates. However, I think there will be other problems with it. As I said before, telomere shortening is part of the authphagy process of how the body rids itself of dysfunctional cells and, thus, enabling regeneration. I really think restoring mitochondrial functionality is the key to indefinite life extension. Restoring mitochondral function will certainly eliminate neurological problems such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. People are already identifying Alzheimer's as the third form of diabetes which, in turn, is a manifestation of metabolic syndrome. Its looking like everything really does go back to the mitochondria.

BTW, the DNA helix is always presented as the universal basis of life. What you might not know is that the ATP Synthase molecule is an even more universal basis of life.

williatw
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Re: Factor X have we finally found the fountain of Youth?

Post by williatw »

kurt9 wrote:I think Bill Andrews is right that telomere elongation in and of itself will not increase cancer rates. However, I think there will be other problems with it. As I said before, telomere shortening is part of the authphagy process of how the body rids itself of dysfunctional cells and, thus, enabling regeneration.
He (Bill Andrews) seem to think that restoring telomere lengths will reverse the cellular senescence without needing the autophagy process to eliminate them. He doesn't seem particularly enthusiastic about senolytic therapies in humans for instance though he concedes it seems to work in mice. He also doesn't think telomere shortening is primarily responsible for mice ageing as he thinks it is in humans.

kurt9 wrote:I really think restoring mitochondrial functionality is the key to indefinite life extension. Restoring mitochondral function will certainly eliminate neurological problems such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. People are already identifying Alzheimer's as the third form of diabetes which, in turn, is a manifestation of metabolic syndrome. Its looking like everything really does go back to the mitochondria.
Not sure how "Restoring mitochondral function" will eliminate the amyloid formations that accompany Alzheimer; though I also don't see how telomere lengthening of brain/cns cells would help either since they don't divide much. They also don't respond to stem cell therapies; the stem cells apparently just sit there and don't do much when placed in the patience's brain. Even if senolytic therapies eliminated senescent brain/cns cells don't see how you would replace them. I don't know but maybe Andrews thinks that if you rebuilt brain/cns cell's telomeres long enough they will get back to a pre-adolescent growth/repair age when they did divide? Not sure if "tricking" your brain into thinking its is 10 yrs old again is a good idea; it is designed to divide until it reaches adult size and then stop dividing. Unlike other organs like skin, heart, lung, liver, etc., that are designed to continually make new cells to replace old damaged ones even after it reaches its adult size.

williatw
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Re: Factor X have we finally found the fountain of Youth?

Post by williatw »

williatw wrote: They also don't respond to stem cell therapies; the stem cells apparently just sit there and don't do much when placed in the patience's brain.
I know I read that somewhere; but can't remember/find the source. Did find this however:

Stem Cell Treatment for Dementia

The Regeneration Center offers a unique and effective treatment plan to repair brain damage caused by dementia. Our functional therapies use neurotrophic growth factors along with exogenous and/or endogenous cells to induce synaptogenesis which then helps to replenish damaged/lost neuronal connection/signal systems and helps reduce amyloid plaque in hippocampus region of the brain. The cultured cells offer immunomodulation capacity with anti-apoptotic activity, and introduce neurogenic properties to the damaged regions from the human brain where they proliferate and matured to neurotransmitters and functional neurons. Sensory precursor cells can be intravenously dealt with but it can also be directly implanted into the brain-damaged locations and bring about recovery of the patient. There is also substantial proof that transplanted stem cells or the neural precursor cells (NPCs) can survive, stir and gradually develop into neurons, oligodendrocytes and astrocytes via a process known as neurogenesis. Stem cells, in addition to replacement of lost and/or damaged cells, can also induce endogenous neural precursors, help boost the structural neuroplasticity, and regulate pro-inflammatory cytokines and the neuronal apoptotic death.(Blurton-Jones et al. 2014)*


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How Neural Cell Replacement Therapy Works

In order to push growth elements into the brain, stem cells can also be genetically modified. Studies indicate that the full-grown brain of the mammals preserves the capability to produce new neurons from the neural stem or progenitor cells. Stem cell therapy for memory loss is one of the most practical and effective way to repair the damages brought about by Brain Injuries, Strokes, Alzheimer’s and of course, to recover intellectual function and quality of life for the patient and family affected by the disease.(Khairallah et al. 2014)*

Neural Stem cells provides the potential to repair the damage caused by Alzheimer’s and restore cognitive function in patients affected with the brain injuries and motor neuron disease.


https://stemcellthailand.org/therapies/ ... -dementia/

Can't vouch for the source "Thailand"; so likely not FDA approved for whatever this is worth, interesting nonetheless. Sounds like it might become a popular medical vacation destination for the well-heeled. If this is correct it could address the issue of brain/cns degradation or damage due to disease or injury.

williatw
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Re: Factor X have we finally found the fountain of Youth?

Post by williatw »

Rejuvenate Bio Has Started Offering Gene Therapy for Dogs

Brian Wang | May 7, 2019

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In 2017, George Church was interviewed in Endpoints. The interview with George Church at Endpoints is the source of the next three paragraphs in italics, which are statements from George Church.

George Church describes the roadmap for to human aging reversal treatments

We will see the first aging reversal test in dog trials in the next year or two. If that works, human trials are another two years away, and eight years before they’re done. Once you get a few going and succeeding it’s a positive feedback loop.

His company Rejuvenate Bio is actually working on the dog trial now
The particular dog model we’re using has a heart disease issue. Rejuvenate Bio was still in semi-stealth mode, incubator mode, but the trial was not a secret. Dogs are a market in and of themselves. [Tens of billions of dollars per year] It’s not just a big organism close to humans. It’s something people will pay for. The FDA process is much faster for dogs than for humans — a little over a year versus nine years or so.

Now two years later the dog heart treatment is fully public.

In 2018, George Church described using a combination of 45 gene therapies to reverse aging.

They have delivered 45 gene therapies to provide aging reversal. They find the combined treatment is effective against obesity, diabetes, osteoarthritis, cardiac damage and kidney disease.



https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2019/05/r ... -dogs.html

ADDENDUM:
We are developing a novel cardio-protective gene therapy to stop the progression of heart failure in dogs. As a part of the technical development, we will launch a study in dogs with Mitral Valve Disease (MVD) in the fall of 2019. This study will provide valuable information that will aid our effort to address MVD.
We are planning on launching the study in fall 2019, in the New England area. We will be selecting dogs that are in stage B2 of heart failure about a month before the study starts.



https://www.rejuvenatebio.com/heart-failure

kurt9
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Re: Factor X have we finally found the fountain of Youth?

Post by kurt9 »

How about that. Doggie gene therapy.

williatw
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Re: Factor X have we finally found the fountain of Youth?

Post by williatw »

kurt9 wrote:How about that. Doggie gene therapy.
George Church describes the roadmap for to human aging reversal treatments. We will see the first aging reversal test in dog trials in the next year or two. If that works, human trials are another two years away, and eight years before they’re done.
Genius from a marketing point of view. The approvals process for new pet treatments is much faster/cheaper; something like a year give or take. Each treated dog is a paying customer in a stand alone profitable business as well as a paying test subject. And also free advertising; some rich person's beloved pooch who was say on death's door pre-treatment is afterwards jumping around like a young dog again. A fact that would be noted by said rich person and his likely equally well-heeled associates.

williatw
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Re: Factor X have we finally found the fountain of Youth?

Post by williatw »

The New Yorker

Brave New World Dept.

Can We Live Longer but Stay Younger?

With greater longevity, the quest to avoid the infirmities of aging is more urgent than ever.


By Adam Gopnik May 13, 2019 5:00 AM
Church is optimistic about the genetic-engineering approach. “We know it can work,” he says, “because we’ve already had success reprogramming embryonic stem cells: you can take a really old cell and turn that back into a young cell. We’re doing it now. Most of the work was done in mice, where we’ve extended the life of mice by a factor of two. It isn’t seen as impressive, because it’s mice, but now we’re working on dogs. There are about nine different pathways that we’ve identified for cell rejuvenation, one of which eliminates senescent cells”—moldering cells that have stopped dividing and tend to spark inflammation, serving as a perpetual irritant to their neighbors.

“We’re already in clinical trials with dogs,” Church says. “If all goes well, we should have that accomplished within two years, and be overlapping that with human clinical trials within the next five years. My guess is that dog trials will go well. Based on the mouse trials, we’re hoping that the effects are general and independent of species—we’re using the same gene therapy in mice and dogs and humans.”
We don’t have to micromanage the repair, the Harvard molecular biologist George Church observes: “If we think epigenetically, we can see that we can make the cells industriously do the repair themselves.” Already a legendary figure for devising genomic-sequencing techniques—it must help that he’s a scientific eminence who has the aura of one, with a grand Darwinian beard and a slow-spoken orotundity—Church gained further attention for his experiments in trying to resurrect extinct species, particularly the woolly mammoth. (One of his standard jokes is that the fifth floor of his lab is off limits to visitors, because that is where the mammoths and the Neanderthals live.) He is also among a group of engineer-entrepreneurs who are trying not to make better products for aging people but to make fewer aging people to sell products to. Perhaps aging is not a condition to be managed but a mistake to be fixed. Sinclair, for one, has successfully extended the life of yeast, and says that he is moving on to human trials. He is an evangelist for the advantages of what he calls “hormesis”—the practice of inducing metabolic stress by short intense exercise or intermittent fasting. “Every day, try to be hungry and out of breath” is his neatly epigenetic epigram.

Anti-aging research, in its “translational,” or applied, form, seems to be proceeding along two main fronts: through “small molecules,” meaning mostly dietary supplements that are intended to rev up the right proteins; and, perhaps more dramatically, through genetic engineering. Typically, genetic engineering involves adding or otherwise manipulating genes in a population of animals, often mice, perhaps by rejiggering a mouse’s genome in embryo and then using it to breed a genetically altered strain. In mice studies, genetic modifications that cause the rodents to make greater amounts of a single protein, sirtuin 6, have resulted in longer life spans (although some scientists think that the intervention merely helped male mice to live as long as female mice).

Church and Noah Davidsohn, a former postdoc in his lab, have engaged in a secretive but much talked-about venture to make old dogs new. They have conducted gene therapy on beagles with the Tufts veterinary school, and are currently advertising for Cavalier King Charles spaniels, which are highly prone to an incurable age-related heart condition, mitral-valve disease; almost all of them develop it by the age of ten. Using a genetically modified virus, Church and Davidsohn’s team will insert a piece of DNA into a dog’s liver cells and get them to produce a protein meant to stop the heart disease from progressing. But the team has larger ambitions. It has been identifying other targets for gene-based interventions, studying a database of aging-related genes: genes that are overexpressed or underexpressed—that make too much or too little of a particular protein—as we grow old. In the CD replay of life, these are the notes that get muffled or amplified, and Davidsohn and Church want to restore them to their proper volume.

Many problems cling to this work, not least that there are surprisingly few “bio-markers” of increased longevity. One researcher makes a comparison with cancer research: we know a patient’s cancer has been successfully treated when the cancer cells go away, but how do you know if you’ve made people live longer except by waiting decades and seeing when they die? Ideally, we’d find something that could be measured in a blood test, say, and was reliably correlated with someone’s life span.

Church is optimistic about the genetic-engineering approach. “We know it can work,” he says, “because we’ve already had success reprogramming embryonic stem cells: you can take a really old cell and turn that back into a young cell. We’re doing it now. Most of the work was done in mice, where we’ve extended the life of mice by a factor of two. It isn’t seen as impressive, because it’s mice, but now we’re working on dogs. There are about nine different pathways that we’ve identified for cell rejuvenation, one of which eliminates senescent cells”—moldering cells that have stopped dividing and tend to spark inflammation, serving as a perpetual irritant to their neighbors.

“We’re already in clinical trials with dogs,” Church says. “If all goes well, we should have that accomplished within two years, and be overlapping that with human clinical trials within the next five years. My guess is that dog trials will go well. Based on the mouse trials, we’re hoping that the effects are general and independent of species—we’re using the same gene therapy in mice and dogs and humans.”


Church is aware that the Food and Drug Administration, among other regulatory bodies, may not be crazy about weird new therapies that address what we customarily take to be a natural process. “Our emphasis is on reversal rather than longevity, in part because it’s easier to get permission from the F.D.A. for reversal of diseases than for prolongation of life,” he says. “Longevity isn’t our aim—we’re just aiming at the reversal of age-related diseases.” Noah Davidsohn enthusiastically seconds this: “We want to make people live better, not necessarily longer, though obviously longer is part of better.” But Church makes it plain that these are adjoining concerns. “How old can people grow?” he says. “Well, if our approach is truly effective, there is no upper limit. But our goal isn’t eternal life. The goal is youthful wellness rather than an extended long period of age-related decline. You know, one of the striking things is that many super-centenarians”—people who live productively past a hundred years—“live a youthful life, and then they die very quickly. They’re here, living well, and then they’re not. It’s not a bad picture.”

There are many skeptics among scientists who wonder how much, or how soon, this kind of work will really affect aging. Church gets shares for serving on the advisory board of Elysium Health, which markets an anti-aging supplement called Basis, and though the literature is careful to say that, “rather than endorsing a specific product, this network of scientists, clinicians and health professionals advises the Elysium team on product identification and development,” how one distinguishes between advising on the product and endorsing the product seems to many a bit mystical. Others may recall the enthusiasm, in the early twentieth century, for implanting monkey glands in people, a procedure that was held out as a scientific solution to the problem of aging. (W. B. Yeats had a related procedure.) The fountain of youth is always splashing away somewhere.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019 ... ounger/amp

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