Yes - lots of stories on this today based on a paper by Jay Olshansky, the famous longevity pessimist:
The paper by Olshansky:
Implausibility of radical life extension in humans in the twenty-first century
Our analysis suggests that survival to age 100 years is unlikely to exceed 15% for females and 5% for males, altogether suggesting that, unless the processes of biological aging can be markedly slowed, radical human life extension is implausible in this century.
He closes the paper with:
until it becomes possible to modulate the biological rate of aging43 and fundamentally alter the primary factors that drive human health and longevity44, radical life extension in already long-lived national populations remains implausible in this century.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43587-024-00702-3
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There is, I would argue, a reasonable probability that some of the identified compounds (rapamycin, canagliflozin, acarbose, 17 alpha estradiol, IL-11 inhibitors, trametinib, etc.) will prove successful in humans to modulate the biological rate of aging in humans… which could reasonably be expected to push life expectancy into the “radical life extension” realm over the coming 50 years.
And, some responses from others in the Geroscience and Longevity Biotech field:
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For those who are interested… the 2016 paper on a similar vein, and a rebuttal:
dong2016.pdf (4.5 MB)
The Rebuttal:
brown2017.pdf (208.7 KB)
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“Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future”
~ said many people.
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For Dr. Olshansky, the only thing that might radically lengthen life expectancy is if scientists develop an intervention to slow the aging process itself — something he’s “optimistic” about, he said.
Dr. Austad is also a believer in the potential of anti-aging medicine. And he said that the new paper doesn’t change his bet that a human alive today will reach 150, because it has always been based on “a breakthrough in targeting the aging process itself.”
From a story by Dana Smith, who did the earlier rapamycin story at The NY Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/07/well/live/average-human-life-span.html
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KarlT
#8
The problem I continue to have with all of these articles and studies is that they continue to work with averages. It will take a lot to move that needle. But having a small number of people live in good health to 100-120 is very possible.
No matter how much we here do, it won’t change the drag on the average caused by infant mortality and young people’s deaths from drugs and violence.
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Yes, infant mortality is still an issue in the USA. There are 5.1 deaths/ 1000 births. That’s much better than Afghanistan at 100 deaths/1000 births, but not as good as Slovenia at 1.5 deaths/1000 births. Hong Kong comes in at 2.5 deaths/1000 births.
Why is the US infant mortality rate so high? Is it lack of medical care during the birthing process???
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Neo
#10
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jakexb
#11
Everything is impossible until it isn’t
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I hope that scientists focus on the perhaps more achievable goal of improving the health and mental and physical capability of the elderly. It does little good to live to 120 if that means 40 years of dementia or 40 years of being confined to a bed or a wheelchair.
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AnUser
#13
Rejuvenation must mean an improvement in health as well I think, unless it wasn’t a disease of aging.
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I guess in a way we are all pioneers on this journey and will find out with all these interventions if we as a cohort become the new blue zone? However, we need individuals included in the cohort to not have major illness before starting into the typical multiple interventions.
I suspect society wide we aren’t going to see much more improvement - but this is due to each generation seeming to gather more metabolic health complications affecting life/healthspan.
However, just like folks in Loma Linda - they are doing their thing, and get on average 11 years more of life. We’ll be doing our thing, and 40 years from now, when an unexpected proportion of us are still alive at 90, or 100, it’ll become obvious that we’ve got something. If that fails, and we all die at expected age, then that’ll answer the question also.
I wonder if @RapAdmin could have a spreadsheet where users opt in, and list age of starting use, what dosing regimen (along with ability to update that) and underlying medical conditions before starting rapamycin, then tracking what resolved with Rapamycin, and what new conditions occurred over time. A check in on January 1 to say you’re still alive, and update the data. Also list a couple next of kin incase you don’t check in and are unreachable, in case of death. Probably too complex to easily do, but thought I’d float the idea.
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JKPrime
#15
He is right that unless a major breakthrough is achieved, it is far fetched to think that majority of people will live past 100. Major breakthrough will require re-architecting human body for longevity. Sadly it will not happen anytime soon unless governments allocate major portions of their budgets to fighting aging by declaring war on aging. Like they do today with military budgets. If they do, I’m very optimistic that a major breakthrough and corresponding “commercial” application is possible in our lifetimes. Maybe even within couple of decades from now judging by what the us was able to achieve with landing crew of astronauts on the moon.
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Remember how the government declared war on drugs and now you can’t buy drugs any more? The war on aging will be just like that. =)
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JKPrime
#17
Sure. The true issue is that treating symptoms and not underlying causes ultimately leads to the failure that you bring up. Government has failed with the war on drugs by failing to provide environment that gives people purpose to their lives that includes education and jobs. Not just simply treating symptoms that is drug addiction. Actually I think that is exactly what’s going on right now with US government spending 18% of GDP on treating symptoms of aging such as cardio vascular disease and cancer, etc, while failing to provide meaningful and sustainable impact on longevity and health span. The true cause of course is that many of these diseases are just diseases of aging and without acknowledging and treating an underlying cause government has failed to produce meaning results. And yes you need government to tackle aging as the task is just too large and unclear for medical researchers and private industry to tackle alone.
KarlT
#20
An interesting take on why American health and life expectancy is so bad.
I’ll warn you that there is a strong political lean to this, but our health is more important than most other political issues.
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