DailyDirt: Defying Nature -- The Quest For A Longer Life And Eternal Youth

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Tue, Sep 25th 2012 5:00pm — Joyce Hung

In the quest for a longer life and eternal youth, people have come up with many different (and sometimes crazy) theories on how to get there. Add years to your life with vitamins, supplements, and hormones! Eat this, not that! Postpone death with suspended animation! Here are just a few examples of possible ways to increase our lifespan.

As early as in 1935, studies have suggested that restricting caloric intake can extend the lifespan of rats, but does the same idea apply to humans? Researchers at Tufts University are conducting a study (CALERIE) to see if reducing caloric intake by 25% can help to slow aging and extend life. [url]
Researchers at the University of Paris have found that feeding rats fullerene (C60) in olive oil can almost double their lifespan, with no long-term toxic effects. Apparently, an unaffiliated small startup is already selling research-ready C60 olive oil solution -- prepared the same way as in the study -- to people interested in studying it (in rats, not people!) [url]
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have figured out how to turn adult blood cells into embryonic stem cells. Aside from curing the incurable, perhaps the discovery could one day lead to eternal youth. [url]
A study from Northwestern University suggests that children with older fathers are more likely to live longer. This is because they inherit longer telomeres from their fathers (and paternal grandfathers) that protect against aging processes. [url]
The FDA has apparently approved "suspended animation" for human trials. The idea is that by injecting critically injured patients with a cold fluid to induce severe hypothermia, death can be postponed so that surgeons can work on them in suspended animation for 60-90 minutes. This extra time could mean the difference between life and death. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

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Filed Under: aging, buckyballs, c60, fullerene, life, lifespan, stem cells, suspended animation, telomeres

7 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 25 Sep 2012 @ 5:17pm

I only want to consume naturally-occurring fullerenes...
Where can I get some organic buckyballs?
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Sep 2012 @ 5:21pm

Yeah that's all we fucking need more RIAA and MPAA fuckers that are still trying to pretend it's 1970 living for another 100 years.
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- Anonymous Coward, 25 Sep 2012 @ 5:58pm
  
  Re:
  "Consider, Watson, that the material, the sensual, the worldly would all prolong their worthless lives. The spiritual would not avoid the call to something higher. It would be the survival of the least fit. What sort of cesspool may not our poor world become?"
  -Sherlock Holmes, "The Adventure of the Creeping Man"
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  - Lawrence D'Oliveiro, 25 Sep 2012 @ 10:20pm
    
    Re: "What sort of cesspool may not our poor world become?"
    By that logic, it would have done so already. The "spiritual" types are already free to die young if they want.
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Lawrence D'Oliveiro, 25 Sep 2012 @ 7:31pm

Want To Live Longer?
Give up sex.
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Hanno (profile), 26 Sep 2012 @ 9:13am

Calorie restriction likely doesn't prolong life
Just recently new research results likely indicate that calorie restriction probably won't prolong live in monkeys, making it likely that it won't work in humans as well.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/aug/29/calorie-restriction-ageing-monkey-study

Whic h is kind of sad, as I was about to jump on and try it out. Still there's nothing wrong with calorie restriction, as the monkeys in the study seemed to live healthier than the control group - and obesity is definitely a risk of dying unneccessary early. But it probably won't prolong your life as it does in rats and worms.
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C 60 Water Canada, 30 Sep 2012 @ 5:34pm

Water Soluble Hydrated Fullerenes from UKRAINE
The only source of safe non toxic water-soluble fullerenes or buckyballs for human consumption is in Ukraine at www.ipacom.com. Soon available to Canada too. Approved as a dietary supplement by the Ministry of Health in UKRAINE in 2010 after over 15 years of pre-clinical and clinical studies. The world's first nanotech based health drink in the wrold.
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