Geneticists Discover a Way to Extend Lifespans to 800 Years
There is now a way to extend the lifespan of organisms so that humans could conceivably live to be 800 years old. In an amazing development, scientists at the University of Southern California have announced that they've extended the lifespan of yeast bacteria tenfold -- and the recipe they used to do it might easily translate into humans. It involves tinkering with two genes, and cutting down your calorie intake. Tests have already started on people in Ecuador.
According to an announcement from PLoS Genetics:
Researchers have created baker's yeast capable of living to 800 in yeast years without apparent side effects. The basic but important discovery, achieved through a combination of dietary and genetic changes, brings scientists closer to controlling the survival and health of the unit of all living systems: the cell. "We're setting the foundation for reprogramming healthy life," says study leader Valter Longo of the University of Southern California.
Longo's group put baker's yeast on a calorie-restricted diet and knocked out two genes - RAS2 and SCH9 - that promote aging in yeast and cancer in humans.
"We got a 10-fold life span extension that is, I think, the longest one that has ever been achieved in any organism," Longo says. Normal yeast organisms live about a week.
"I would say 10-fold is pretty significant," says Anna McCormick, chief of the genetics and cell biology branch at the National Institute on Aging (NIA) and Longo's program officer. The NIA funds such research in the hope of extending healthy life span in humans through the development of drugs that mimic the life-prolonging techniques used by Longo and others, McCormick adds.
Baker's yeast is one of the most studied and best understood organisms at the molecular and genetic level. Remarkably, in light of its simplicity, yeast has led to the discovery of some of the most important genes and pathways regulating aging and disease in mice and other mammals.
Longo's group next plans to further investigate life span extension in mice. The group is already studying a human population in Ecuador with mutations analogous to those described in yeast.
"People with two copies of the mutations have very small stature and other defects," Longo says. "We are now identifying the relatives with only one copy of the mutation, who are apparently normal. We hope that they will show a reduced incidence of diseases and an extended life span."
Longo cautions that, as in the Ecuador case, longevity mutations tend to come with severe growth deficits and other health problems. Finding drugs to extend the human life span without side effects will not be easy.
I've always been a skeptic when it comes to life-extending research, but this has me rethinking my position.
Lifespan Extension [PLoS Genetics]
1:30 PM ON WED JAN 16 2008
BY ANNALEE NEWITZ
58,115 views
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BIOLOGY, GENETICS, LIFE EXTENSION, MAD SCIENCE, PLOS
If I can't eat McDonald's, why would I want to live for 800 years?
If human lifespans ever do reach super-long spans - 150 or more - expect suicide to become socially acceptable.
Hmm. I feel a short story coming on.
Just because you can don't mean you should. This sort of Methuselah tinkering will come to no good end I tell ya. No good. Mark my words.
I do believe that...
"Tests have already started on people in Ecuador."
...is significantly (and thankfully) different from if less interesting than...
"The group is already studying a human population in Ecuador with mutations analogous to those described in yeast."
@jabber: Such a doomsayer! Must I be the only one promoting science?
Minded, we could save the life-extending for the top 1%, to make sure they have a firm, tight grasp over the underlings for generations!
as long as I can still retire at 65, I'm all for it. If I have to keep working at the same job for the next 750 years, then yes, suicide booth, here I come!
junior high school would be about 100 years long...
@SeeingI: "I feel a short story coming on." Kurt Vonnegut already wrote it.
Ugh, this would be so horrible. The earth would become quickly overpopulated.
The earth is way past overpopulated.
Tests have already started on people in Ecquador.
Expect conclusive results in about 2808.
Suckers.
Sniff. Cough.
Nah, this is just a cold, you know, the common cold...
... that I've had for six decades.
Give me 200 years of life and I will live long enough to scrap this meat sack for some useful hardware.
@92BuickLeSabre: Well, yeah . . . they're testing people with the same mutation. Which isn't, in fact, such a great mutation to have. Still I have to say that this is some of the most interesting research I've seen into life-extension. Though I'm not sure I'd want to live 800 years on a calorie-restricted diet.
@extracrispy: Up, Up, to Space!
"M. A. R. S. Mars. bitches." -Dave Chapelle
@SeeingI: See? Humans with a lifespan of 800 years. That's exactly what I meant when I called Æonpunk
Have these people not read Tuck Everlasting? All they have to do is find the right spring to drink from. Sheesh, talk about a waste of research dollars.
@SeeingI:
Maybe people will also adopt longer-range thinking, in terms of health, the environment, relationships, etc.
"Tests have already started on people in Ecuador."
?! What? Seriously? I'm going to read this post again b/c everything after the above quote was lost in a wtf thought sequence.
@Crashproof: Yes, and maybe my girlfriend is making rainbow cake for dinner, with cheerleader ménage à trois for dessert.
@moff: Sounds delicious
@Gann: And unlikely! Sadly.
800 year lifespans couldn't possibly be good for the divorce rate. Is it possible for it to be over 100%?
I would like to live for 800 years, but it would take the fun out of it if everyone else did too.
@Annalee: I wouldn't either. Count me in among the short-lifers, happy-lifers crowd.
Am I the only one that would love living 800 years? And if we did achieve 800 years, we would pretty much live forever (in 800 years the scientists would figure out a way to increase it even further).
Of course I lot would have to change... but I see myself doing everything. Studying things that I never had the time, working in different professions, taking a break of about 50 years and just go to an isolated island and think, etc...
The Earth would fill up very quickly, but at the same time, long space travels would be possible (inside self-sustained ships, etc).
A "calorie restricted" diet isn't such a problem as it seems at first. I love love LOVE good food. But I am sure that they'll soon find a way for us to eat whatever we want without absorbing the calories. So maybe I'd have to be calorie restricted for a short while, but then I'll have 800 years to eat whatever I want.
I don't buy the idea that life is "good because it's short". My life, at least, is varied enough that I can't imagine being bored in 800 years. As long as I've got reasonable health, more life is better.
Here's hoping they get this figured out before I croak :)
@guibom: No, you're far from it. I think there's entirely too much possibility for the future to not want to be around to see it happen. Yeah, extending peoples' lifespans by 10x would require numerous changes to society to handle it. But that doesn't mean we should just give it up.
I've always like to suggest the idea that someone in a society with such lifespans could live in cycles of education-work-retire. Do 5-10 years of schooling in a field, work in it for fifty years or so, then take 10 years off to work on personal projects, live a life of leisure, etc. Then do it again in a new field.
@whyaduck: For the chance of an individual marriage to end in divorce, no. But it's entirely possible for the average person to have 2.4 divorces to go along with their 2.1 children.
800 years, thrilling. Just what I always wanted, 720 years of Alzheimers. Sign me up now.
My biggest fear is of death, so anything to delay it is good in my personal book.
@kromekoran: That's very true!
@SeeingI: And Euthanasia Centers in every town.
@Gibgirl: Society is already changing drastically. There is going to be some serious strife in the near future, especially if this ability comes to fruition. All in all I think it is a good thing though. I think living for 800 years could be just as fun and rewarding as living like a fat pig munching fried fat and having trouble walking up stairs, or just the pain of getting old. With that kind of argument, you might as well do cocaine and E because you sure have fun, even if you only live 25 years.
@guibom: Let me be clear. I would love to live 800 years. Just not at the expense of calories...or cigarettes...or coffee...or
I think the biggest issue would be having a bunch of 400-year-olds who have gone bat-shit crazy from all the shit they've seen over their three lifetimes, but who have amassed enough money to keep screwing stuff up for the rest of the population by voting republican.
Personally, I look forward to imposing my 21st century bigotry, worldview and outdated ideals on the children of the 28th century. Those lazy little shits.
I would love to be able to see what changes occur in science and space travel. Count me in.
@dead_red_eyes: Why does this idea continue? The notion that science and technology will only advance in one area? Yes, we're almost certain to develop life extension to a radical degree in the near to medium future, but it's not like every other technology will be standing still while we do it.
I'd only elect to live for 800 years because by that time I'll be able to live for 8000, which would lead to 80,000, etc. People can choose to die if they want, but it's not for me. I have at least one entire universe to explore and that doesn't get done in a few decades.
This brings a whole new meaning to life in prison!
Sorry to spoil the fun, but as a molecular biologist I have to point out the fact that yeast are slightly less complex than human beings. As cells multiply unchecked, mutations build up very quickly. When this happens to a single-celled organism such as yeast, these mutations cause the cells to malfunction in various ways: they may lose the ability to metabolize essential nutrients, stop growing, or begin to multiply without any control. If the latter happens to the single celled organism, the new cells will simply run out of food and die. However, if a mutant cell in a human begins to divide uncontrollably, the "food" that it uses is the rest of the body. Enter cancer. There is reason for the senescence (aging) of cells: it keeps the whole organism (person) in better health, by preventing cells from dividing when they are not supposed to. While the findings of this study may have some benefits for cancer research, as many cancers arise from the failure of "aging" mechanisms in the cell, 800 year life spans will simply not happen. If all of the aging genes were shut off, we would just end up with more cancer patients.
That being said, if there were a way to reach 800 years old, I would be the first to sign up
@Huxleyhobbes: A bit arrogant to claim that humans "are almost certain to develop life-extension", isn't it?
@EncephelanetRepairHelperGuy: A bit arrogant to claim that humans "are almost certain to develop life-extension", isn't it?
Clarke's three laws:
1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
So, the answer is "No, it's actually quite likely."
@Nebris: I like the corollary to law #3:
Any technology indistiguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
@braak: Er. Any technology DISTINGUISHABLE from magic is insufficiently advanced.
Sorry.
@AndyDuncan: Anyone under 150 voting Republican doesn't have a heart, anyone over 150 that doesn't vote Republican doesn't have a brain.
dude, there's already a story about this (kind of). it's called pandora's star and (second book)judas unchained by peter f. hamilton.
1% of the quadrant's population controls the other 99%.
But we must wait until 2040 for the first human to get a long lifetime but after that everyone does it.
They do a 50 year life, get young again, then a seperate 50 year life, get young again, rinse and repeat.
I'd just like to live with the tech from the future.
Would Halo 35 be out? (they found more Halos in another galaxy!)
Star Trek XXXVI: The Delta Quadrant.
No terrorism!
Indie films are the most popular, there are no major studios.
Replicator anyone?
@Gyrus: Damn, trumped by Vonnegut. Again!
Yeast are not bacteria. Yeasts are fungi.
Nice, I should just be finished paying off my student loans after 800 yrs. Time to party.
Living 800 years is reckless, selfish and irresponsible on a global scale.
Ecuatorian mutant yeast people are cool.
@SeeingI: "Damn, trumped by Vonnegut. Again!"
Don't worry about it, that happens to everyone.
Anyway, I thik this would only appeal to me if the aging process could be slowed or stopped as well. I don't want to get old and fragile, then have another 730 years of aging ahead of me.
Yeah, great. 800 years of poverty and the corresponding lonliness. DO NOT WANT.
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