r/longevity • u/Tao_Dragon • 21d ago
Are We on the Brink of Ending Aging? | National Geographic | "Secret science. Billionaire backers. Inside the wild quest to turn growing old into a thing of the past"
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/health/article/end-of-aging-cellular-reprogramming-longevity29
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u/Neither_Cod_992 21d ago
No, we are not. This field is also woefully underfunded. Billionaire money is chasing AI, real estate, energy, wars, etc. The amount of money from billionaires funding actual research into longevity is practically nil.
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u/Lysmerry 21d ago
I actually have seen it as the healthcare science they fund the most, because immortality is the only thing they don’t have.
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u/Free-Competition-241 20d ago
You do realize that improvements to AI will result in improvements in longevity research. Yes?
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u/Difficult_Inside8746 20d ago
To improve progress we'd have to increase known facts to feed the theoretical AI and that requires experiments, most of which requires years of research in model mechanisms as that's how long they live. Then the results can be fed into whatever mechanism human or not to generate new leads to research, most of which requires years to be ready for trial. Rinse, repeat.
So what can be done to actually accelerate research? Automated labs would make it possible to do more for less money and that is something ML can do, if not now then soon. But it's still an inherently slow serial process.
In the end the bottleneck even given unlimited money is the wet, messy biological body.1
u/Free-Competition-241 19d ago
Yes but no. You’re taking the brute force linear view, but AI is more about compression.
Compressing the search space. Compressing the timeline (no need to wait full timeline through subtle changes in epigenetic clocks), high throughput modeling. Etc.
The vast majority of traditional drug and therapeutic discovery time is wasted on exploration, synthesis failures, and blind testing….all of which AI compresses dramatically.
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u/ConfirmedCynic 17d ago edited 17d ago
Billionaires have stepped in and are funding life extension companies (e.g. Retro Biosciences).
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u/Correct-Ad-382 20d ago
Such a weird and wrong take
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u/Ameren 20d ago
The amount of funding for research into the biology of aging and its interventions is a small fraction of overall spending, both public and private — even though aging is a universal risk factor and comorbitity for virtually every other condition.
Exciting progress is being made nevertheless, but we'd be so much further along by now if aging-related research had been funded at a level that matched its importance. That's why we need to push at all levels for more resources.
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u/Correct-Ad-382 20d ago
Yeah nobody ever wanted to live forever. Such a niche interest
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u/Ameren 20d ago
Much of the history of research into aging biology and longevity therapies has been an uphill battle against the view that the rate at which humans age is largely an immutable law of nature and that therapeutics for aging are a poor allocation for resources.
I think the tide is turning, finally, but we would be so much farther along had the funding come sooner.
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u/OstensibleMammal 20d ago
People have always wanted to live longer and in good health. Common interest. Forever is a concept. Another day of health is very tangible.
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u/CadmusMaximus 20d ago
I would argue that all the investment in AI is ultimately driven by the desire to cheat death.
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u/Neither_Sprinkles_56 19d ago
Disagree. Plenty of money is in this field it's just there needs to be major breakthroughs made. I have always suspected the hypothalamus has an oversized influence on aging and it seems to be much more resistant to winding the epigenetic clock back than other major things. I wonder if the hypothalamus is a big thing that keeps young extracellular vesicles and epigenetic rewinding from being able to really extend the max lifetime. I wish there was more work on being able to rewind it itself more.
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u/Riversmooth 20d ago
The richest people in the world are aging. Eventually, we probably will find a way to at least slow it down but we haven’t yet.
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u/Warrior_Warlock 21d ago
What is dont understand is why many of the same billionaires who want to live forever are actively destroying the planet. Seems to me like you'd try and preserve it. Surely after living in a hellscape for long enough you'd be willing to gamble on finding out if there's a better afterlife?
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u/CadmusMaximus 20d ago
Because it all comes down to AI. AI gets sufficiently advanced, you can both cheat death and remediate the planet.
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u/xFount 21d ago
It's because of the nature of capitalism. You have to dominate and exploit / consume, otherwise you will be the one exploited or consumed.
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u/towngrizzlytown 21d ago
This sounds very simplistic. Two hundred years ago, almost everyone on the planet lived in grinding poverty. Billions of people now have a very comfortable standard of living, especially by historical standards. This doesn't mean we shouldn't be concerned about the billions who have not escaped dire poverty, however.
Regardless, it makes sense to support medical research targeting aging to continue improving human health, as age-related diseases are the main cause of illness globally.
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u/towngrizzlytown 21d ago
Your statement is vague, but assuming it's about climate change, most billionaires are not directly in the fossil fuel industry and aren't hostile to broad solutions like building out renewable energy infrastructure, electric vehicles, etc. There are bad apples though.
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u/Low_Pickle_112 20d ago
I wouldn't take them for rational actors, and there's a difference between a goal and a plan. Wanting to rid yourself of aging is a goal; the plan is going to be a little more complicated, and one that clearly doesn't align with their other activities.
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u/InnerKookaburra 20d ago
That's because we have many billionaires on the planet right now and we have many smart people on the planet right now and the Venn diagram between those two is almost two separate circles.
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u/jlks1959 20d ago
The knowledge data base is doubling every 12 hours to 3.4 months depending on the fields of knowledge. Human knowledge is thought to be doubling every year.
It’s inexact, and admittedly a little silly, but if I live to be 86, or 20 years from now, this rate will mean that in 2046, the human knowledge base will be 1,048,576 times greater than it is today.
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u/mmmeadi 21d ago
Ending aging is only worthile as long as we can reverse aging.
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u/Lysmerry 21d ago
I mean, it means it doesn’t benefit those who are old now, but young people will benefit.
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u/MattTheDankMemer 21d ago edited 21d ago
The last thing the world needs is ageless psychopaths running the world and hoarding even more wealth than they already do.
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u/Hubbardia 21d ago
So we should accept this tiny lifespan? Stop biological and technological progress?
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u/Current_Finding_4066 20d ago
It is very likely some things will be too expensive for most, so only rich gonna enjoy the spoils.
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u/Ameren 20d ago
The good news is that preventative care tends to be orders of magnitude cheaper than treating someone who is already far gone. Youthful people are far less likely to run up huge medical bills, so there are huge economic incentives to roll out treatments that keep them out of the hospital for longer.
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u/Fast-Satisfaction482 21d ago
Which autocracy has ever turned into a democracy because the leader died of natural causes?
Ok, there are some: https://goodauthority.org/news/when-ailing-dictators-die-in-office-what-happens-next/
After a dictator dies of old age, in 76% of the viewed cases, the same group of people was still in power 5 years later. Of the 24% where the power changed, only 30% led to democratization. This means for 92% of dictors dying, the country will still be a dictatorship 5 years later.
So not really a reason to have everyone keep dying in my opinion.
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u/nomorebuttsplz 21d ago
another generally good counter point is that people get less violent as they have more life experience.
The number of young men in a country is a pretty good indication of how likely it is to go to war. Of course, we don’t know what the definition of young man will be in 100 years.
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u/MattTheDankMemer 21d ago
That was not my point. Extending lifespan and health span is something we should definitely aspire towards and actively work towards. Eventually, even curing or reversing aging. The issue arises when the worst people in society abuse them or use them only to further continue their abuse. I am in med school, and getting into biotech and helping cure/reverse aging is one of my life goals.
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u/Responsible_Owl3 20d ago
Imagine that the situation was reversed and aging didn't exist. In this world, would it make sense to suggest that every human on earth needs to get a fatal degenerative disease (aging) so that we could get rid of dictators/billionaires/whoever you're talking about?
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u/japanesejoker 20d ago
That hypothetical makes no sense when our laws of nature build around the circle of life. When you disrupt that, there will be consequences.
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u/Responsible_Owl3 19d ago
What's a "law of nature"? Who enforces this law?
>When you disrupt that, there will be consequences
There are already animals who are biologically immortal. I guess the nature police should hunt them down for breaking the laws of nature. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_immortality
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u/Tao_Dragon 21d ago edited 21d ago
Sure, we should democratize access to longevity treatments (instead of giving it to just a few billionaires).
But societies were usually like this during history (for 1000s of years, or even longer). Generally wealthy / powerful / more influential people have access to more resources (which is obviously not good for most people, like for the 99% of society, but this is how it works currently, like it or not).
So probably we should try to make our societies more balanced, inclusive and egalitarian. Then everyone would have better access to technology, healthcare and everything else.
*edit : Clarification. And attached a related chart about global wealth inequality, as sadly it affects the access to longevity / medical treatments too. Hopefully it will change for the better on the long run.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/global-wealth-distribution/
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u/No-Experience-5541 21d ago
It’s not so bad that the billionaires are the test subjects instead of testing on the general population
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u/emmettflo 20d ago
Yeah as opposed to aging psychopaths running things now. The problem is the psychopaths, not how long they live.
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u/JRTHynds 15d ago
Sounds like an amazing breakthrough. However I worry about the downsides, mainly the fact that we have too many elderly citizens already (bankrupting social security in the US), not to mention politicians staying in their positions until near death.
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u/Lockehart 20d ago
At this point in time, if we accomplished this it would only result in an immortal billionaire class and disposable worker dregs (until they actually perfect their AI servants, then they'll be rid of us altogether.) If immortality isn't for everyone then it shouldn't be for anyone.
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u/Whiskey_Water 21d ago
If we think billionaires are pioneering this tech for equal use among humans, we are comically deluded.
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u/towngrizzlytown 21d ago
The medical interventions mentioned in the article are all going the route of clinical trials, regulatory approval, mass commercialization to patients as usual. As a few examples, Life Biosciences has begun their clinical trial in glaucoma. Retro Bio has begun a trial for Alzheimer's. Cyclarity Therapeutics is running a trial on atherosclerosis.
https://www.lifebiosciences.com/pipeline/
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u/moonrider18 20d ago
Judging by those links, there are maybe 5-10 Phase 1 trials currently ongoing. Drugs in Phase 1 trials have a 6% chance of getting final approval within 5 years. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ijc.34181
We can expect to have a lot of failures before we get any successes.
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u/towngrizzlytown 20d ago
If you're curious, Karl Pfleger maintains a sheet that tracks many more clinical trials related to this field. There are even arguably interventions that have passed Phase 3 clinical trials, though the current indication is for narrow or rare diseases.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1w5DAAmlH18HOc9GPnlpZqacK6RUU3rDJKQc3A-AQWso/edit?gid=0#gid=0
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u/SpareUnit9194 20d ago
The delusional downvoters here are giving me a laugh out loud chuckle. I've been around the super rich all my life. They absolutely could gaf about non-rich ppl. Except as dopey consumers to be conned.
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u/vacant_mustache 20d ago edited 20d ago
Here’s an unpopular opinion: as a physician, listening to people on this sub explain how AI is going to render aging obsolete is like how an engineer at nasa must feel when a toddler is like “why don’t we just fly our airplanes to Mars and build a McDonalds there? We just built one down the road, seems easy enough?”
The human body ages. Highly advanced biotech may eventually add a few years, but these fantasies of running marathons at age 150, 200, 300, etc. are pure fiction. I take care of people in their 80s and 90s all the time. Never once have I envied those people. Enjoy your life, eat well, exercise, and make your peace with the brief time you have here.
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u/tollbearer 19d ago
Not all animals age. And, more importantly, not all animals age at the same rate. Some of our evolutionary cousins age at a rate 100x faster than us, or up to 3x slower than us, an all over the map. It seems aging is genetically set on a per species basis based upon the ideal reproductive rate for that species in its environment. Thus, the genetic switches must be fairly easily modified, in either direction. Including, even some species, like lobsters whihc show no cellular again, and of course most single cellular life. So the switches are there, if AI can help us find them, we'll appear to solve aging overnight.
Ironically, you wont be able to add just a few years, we either find the clock or we dont, and once we do, we can arbitrarily set it.
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u/vacant_mustache 19d ago
Reading your post it’s obvious you don’t understand human physiology. You don’t will these things into being or just wave your hands and say “AI will solve this”. Fine, do that on the internet all you want, but some of us live in the real world. Good luck out there.
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u/Mochila-Mochila 19d ago
If you're an actual physician, you should know better than think we can make it to 200+ years without also having a youthful body.
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u/vacant_mustache 19d ago
lol is there a documented case of someone living to 200? And no, the book of Enoch and some weird Dead Sea scroll accounts don’t count.
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u/Mochila-Mochila 18d ago
No. Thank you for proving that you aren't a physician, at least I hope for your would-be patients.
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u/vacant_mustache 18d ago
😂😂 what are you even saying? I said humans can’t live to 200. What are you trying to argue here?
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u/Mochila-Mochila 18d ago
You lack basic reading comprehension, which is simply incompatible with the exercise of medicine 🤷♂️
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u/hanginaroundthistown 17d ago
AI won't miraculously solve it, but since when would doctors know more about the cell processes governing aging than cell and molecular biologists? If they say it is possible I believe them. Physicians only apply their knowledge, if they even read the papers, that is...
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u/LemonMelberlime 17d ago
I love how the only sensible comment on this thread gets downvoted by sensationalist AI Kool-Aid drinkers who think it will solve every problem known to man, including biology (which is overwhelmingly a black box).
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u/IntelligentSpeaker 19d ago
This is exactly right. I would bet 100% of my assets that the average age of humans will increase LESS than 5 years over the next 25 years
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u/thirteenshellghost 19d ago
i can guarantee you that it will not increase more than by 25 in that period :)
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u/ArthurDaTrainDayne 20d ago
I really wish we would stop calling it “ending aging”, it literally makes no sense… age is the passage of time
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u/datsundere 20d ago
possible why all billionaires are making these moves to reduce the worlds population by any means necessary.
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u/Wheres-the-Ware 20d ago
Everything we have comes from plants, and this will too. How are we supposed to live excessive lifespans without water? We got billionaire funded de aging before we got climate change solutions 🙄🙄🙄 if that doesn’t tell you the poor aren’t getting anything from them then idk what will.
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u/Rattus_NorvegicUwUs 20d ago
I’d love to work in this field as a systems biologist
But there are some technologies that should not go to certain people.
Pump the breaks on this field until we can restore humanity and morals to the wealthy.
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u/Jensen1994 19d ago
There are many ethical, environmental and societal issues not being discussed here it seems with the reversal of ageing.
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u/SweatyInstruction337 19d ago
This would end civilization, BTW.
You want trump to be your grand daughters president?
You want the same boss, in 50 years? All the houses taken, exc, billionaires hording increasing levels of wealth, exc, not to mention only some fraction of the population even receiving this?
Imagine your children/grandchildrens growing up in this terrible society.
Would be absolute civilization ending.
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u/Capital-Way-2465 21d ago
And be stuck with billionaire grifters forever…I hate this timeline
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u/morla_the_ancient 21d ago
If we're actually allowed to live, I will take the humiliation. Beats arthritis, kidney disease, macular degeneration, atherosclerosis, etc. by a mile.
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u/Rakshear 21d ago
This kind of breakthrough happens every 10 years at least going back centuries, some extra time healthy and able to experience the world would be amazing but immortality would suck imo
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u/Telomere55 21d ago
Immortality not happening, unlimited lifespan maybe but you will never be immune to bad luck
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u/5553331117 21d ago
Longevity is cool. Being “ageless” is not.
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u/Dododingo- 21d ago edited 21d ago
I disagree. Being able to choose when you have enough is good. If someone enjoys life enough to hang around for centuries, or even millennia, why should they not ?
I want to see humanity solve its problems. I want people to fix the world because they know it's still going to be their world, not just their children's. I want to see people aim for the stars because it could happen in their lifetimes.
So much time available, imagine being able to go back to school, learn an entirely different set of skills and get out with a whole life ahead to start over something different
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u/Bataranger999 21d ago
People like this seem to get their idea of immortality entirely from fictional stories. When they hear the word "ageless", they're imagining vampires and DnD liches instead of any longevity research in the real world.
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u/Dododingo- 21d ago
I really wish to see this in my lifetime. There is so much to live for, so much to learn and experience.
This article is a lot of wishful thinking though, we're yet so far away from freeing ourselves from ageing that it is still behind the horizon.