lokrian (u/lokrian) - Readit News

lokrian commented on Review of Anti-Aging Drugs scienceblog.com/joshmitte... · Posted by u/XzetaU8

DennisP · 7 days ago

In fact that's Aubrey de Grey's approach: rather than trying to figure out all the complicated processes involved in causing the damage in the first place, so you can slow them down, just directly fix the damage afterwards. There's been quite a bit of research on this.

lokrian · 7 days ago

A question - why hasn't Aubrey de Grey been more successful in getting some tech billionaire to fund his research agenda? He seems charismatic and smart, and had some promising ideas.

lokrian commented on Review of Anti-Aging Drugs scienceblog.com/joshmitte... · Posted by u/XzetaU8

deadbabe · 7 days ago

How many people can really even afford life extension? As in living all the way into 90s or 100? Your retirement savings have to be pretty solid to enjoy those extra years. It’s not like before, the game has changed.

lokrian · 7 days ago

A better question might be can we afford NOT to have life extension? Advanced economies all over the world are filling up with sick, elderly people who form a massive drain on the economy, and it's going to get much worse. Developing medical technologies that can keep them healthier and productive for longer is the one thing that can save us here.

lokrian commented on Review of Anti-Aging Drugs scienceblog.com/joshmitte... · Posted by u/XzetaU8

schappim · 7 days ago

What's striking about "anti-ageing" research is how it keeps circling back to the same boring truths: don’t smoke, keep your weight down, move often, sleep properly, keep blood pressure and cholesterol in check, and go easy on the booze.

If something makes an overweight, sedentary smoker hit 100, then it’s a miracle drug. Please let me know if/when you've seen that drug...

lokrian · 7 days ago

This is just another way of saying there have been no big advances in clinical anti-ageing. And that's probably because little serious effort is going into it, compared with say, military spending.

lokrian commented on Review of Anti-Aging Drugs scienceblog.com/joshmitte... · Posted by u/XzetaU8

cactusplant7374 · 7 days ago

> 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.

lokrian · 7 days ago

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.

lokrian commented on California unemployment rises to 5.5%, worst in the U.S. as tech falters sfchronicle.com/californi... · Posted by u/littlexsparkee

jmspring · 9 days ago

Time to start holding businesses accountable for pushing the cheaper labor option. Many of those on visas are biased toward those from their own cultural heritage as well.

lokrian · 9 days ago

Those businesses own all the social media, all the search engines, all the apps people discuss things on, and all the politicians.

lokrian commented on Once a death sentence, cardiac amyloidosis is finally treatable nytimes.com/2025/08/04/we... · Posted by u/elektor

philwelch · 20 days ago

“Fewer deaths” is a meaningless concept. Every human being inevitably dies. If you prevent someone from dying today, you have only delayed the inevitable. In some cases this is extremely valuable; if you save a newborn baby, that baby could live eighty more years. If you save a 77 year old, they will not live eighty more years. And if you repeatedly save elderly people from natural conditions that could easily kill them, their quality of life gets worse and worse over time as their bodies wear out and decay and the side effects of these interventions build up. Which is why the vast majority of doctors have DNR’s.

lokrian · 20 days ago

While this is logical, the more diseases of old age we cure the longer and better the quality of life the elderly get, and treating amyloidosis is one small step towards that.

lokrian commented on AI is wrecking a fragile job market for college graduates wsj.com/lifestyle/careers... · Posted by u/alephnerd

bitexploder · a month ago

This will create what I am calling a “seniority crunch”. Entry level jobs are hard to get, humans aren’t learning the deeper aspects and reasoning parts of knowledge work. Gap created for people with this knowledge. Senior IC jobs demand goes up. Fewer with xp to fill it. LLMs don’t reason well. They can’t do that and likely never will be coaxed into it. Just one scenario I think is plausible.

lokrian · a month ago

Or it will lead to demand for massive government job programs, huge tax increases to pay for, free enterprise being smothered, everything being run by government bureaucrats.

lokrian commented on Coronary artery calcium testing can reveal plaque in arteries, but is underused nytimes.com/2025/07/26/he... · Posted by u/brandonb

klipklop · a month ago

What I always wondered is if I get this test done, what would I even do with the results? If my arteries are already clogged, etc.

Can this plaque be reversed?

lokrian · a month ago

At least one clinical trial is underway for a drug that can remove the plaques: https://www.lifespan.io/news/cyclarity-launches-human-trial-... But yeah, we badly need more companies doing more research in this space.

lokrian commented on Coronary artery calcium testing can reveal plaque in arteries, but is underused nytimes.com/2025/07/26/he... · Posted by u/brandonb

breadwinner · a month ago

It is surprising that no one has mentioned antioxidants and green tea yet.

Cholesterol is a substance the body naturally produces and requires for many functions. In the brain, cholesterol is essential for building and maintaining neuronal membranes, supporting synapse formation, and enabling myelin production. Statins interfere with cholesterol synthesis in the brain and have been associated in some cases with brain fog or short-term memory issues.

Cholesterol itself is not inherently harmful. It is oxidized cholesterol that causes atherosclerosis.

Antioxidants such as those found in green tea help prevent LDL oxidation.

lokrian · a month ago

Yes, trying to fight cardiovascular disease by getting rid of cholesterol is like trying to fight rust in your car by getting rid of the metal parts.

lokrian commented on Cancer DNA is detectable in blood years before diagnosis sciencenews.org/article/c... · Posted by u/bookofjoe

aquafox · a month ago

> This sort of thing is exactly like preventative whole body MRI scans. It's very noisy, very overwhelming data that is only statistically useful in cases we're not even sure about yet. To use it in a treatment program is witchcraft at this moment, probably doing more harm than good.

The child of a friend of mine has PTEN-Hamartom-Tumor-Syndrom, a tendency to develop tumors throughout life due to a mutation in the PTEN gene. The poor child gets whole body MRIs and other check-ups every half year. As someone in biological data science, I always tell the parents how difficult it will be to prevent false positives, because we don't have a lot of data on routine full body check-ups on healty people. We just know the huge spectrum on how healthy/ok tissue looks like.

lokrian · a month ago

Hopefully gene therapy can fix this sort of problem.

u/lokrian

KarmaCake day10July 19, 2025View Original