= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
EStokes comments on Open Thread: May 2010, Part 2 - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (348)
No.40 on Yahoo's homepage- "Is aging a disease?"
From the article:
I wonder how many appearances of this idea ("making 70-80 year lives healthy would be awesome, but trying to vastly extend lifespans would be weird") are due to public relations expediency, and how many are due to the speakers actually believing it.
Well, in fairness so far we've had a lot of trouble handling general aging. Also, note that what Dillin said is having an 100 year old person live to be 250. Not, someone born today living to 250. That's a very different circumstance. The first is much more difficult than the second since all the aging has already taken place.
Is aging a disease? I doubt it. Aging is probably many diseases, prominent ones being accumulation of errors in genetic code, deterioration of muscle, growth of material intrusions into blood vessels ... there's no particular reason to think that a cure for one will cure any other.
That said, I think the medical professionals working on this are aware of the variety of damage mechanisms that need addressing - I just want to make sure that we don't forget them.
It wouldn't surprise me if accumulated errors explain a lot of the symptoms of aging.
On the other hand, aging could be at least partly an independent syndrome--progeria suggests that.