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civilrunner t1_je6hkf1 wrote

Reply to comment by sumane12 in If you can live another 50 years, you will see the end of human aging by thecoffeejesus

I'm curious about this. Will we be able to extend health span before we will be able to repair age related damage and therefore reach LEV?

Most of the stuff I've seen that doesn't genuinely repair age related damage doesn't really do much if anything to extend human lifespan. For instance even if we cure all cancer, life expectancy would only increase by about 2-3 years due to other causes of death like dementia, heart disease, strokes, etc... (Obviously that's worth it, but it's not nearly the same utopia society as some think it could be)

The only thing I've seen that genuinely adds years to human health is reducing stress, having friendships, exercising, eating healthy, avoiding pollution, and making consistent good choices to reduce accidental risk (seat belts, bike helmets, etc...). The standard being healthy stuff.

To really move the needle a lot it seems to me that we need to be able to heal age related damage pretty much everywhere. I believe we are getting to that point within an exponential curve, but it will still likely require synthetic biology delivery systems and a great understanding of our genetics (understanding what Yamanaka factors are truly doing) and much more (many things that each need substantial break throughs).

I believe AI and automation will help a lot with accelerating scientific discovery on this path and we may be shocked by what happens within the next 10 to 20 years.

I personally don't believe any of us can predict further out than 10 years and even anything beyond 3 to 5 is a pretty massive stretch.

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sumane12 t1_je6jgw8 wrote

Remember, you're judging this based on people who are dieing in their 80s today, think about what life was like 60 years ago when they were in their 20s, open coal fires, smoking and passive smoking, little to no understanding of health and fitness (general population), little to no health and safety at work regulations, little to no enforcement of FDA regulations, little to no understanding of the effects of alcohol, obesity etc. Not to mention the effect of caloric restriction, intermittent fasting, Metformin, yamanaka factors, resveratrol, these will have a compounding effect to the point I believe anyone born 1980s+ will probably have an average life span closer to 100 than 80. That's assuming no further medical advancements between now and then.

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civilrunner t1_je6js9y wrote

I agree. No one knows their life expectancy until well they're as old as their life expectancy (whatever it ends up being).

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