Life span and evolution

Why can't people extend their own life span genetically? I think this subject deserves more attention than it is getting. There is a reason some species live longer than others and it is mostly genetic.

https://mymodernmet.com/greenland-shark-oldest-vertebrate/?fbclid=IwAR0Kp7JTxreavkBUhN5oYd7xGtgern8T51CIXh1853GVZMeUvzQZUh96VrE

One day genetics will advance to a point were people WILL be able to have their life span genetically expanded. I hope that happens in my lifetime but think that extremely unlikely because we are not even CLOSE to achieving that sort of GM. But if only somehow I manage to achieve my life ambition to create an AI singularity then those AIs would work out how to do it and then I will personally offer semi-immorality free of charge to anyone that wants it. But I am currently desperately many years away from doing that because there are some very difficult AI problems I am currently working on that have to be sorted first.

@Metal-Brain
It's not clear to me what you mean by this. Do you mean modification to the germ line, so that future generations live longer or do you mean some sort of retrovirus infection which inserts "live long" genes? At a technical level I'm not sure either will work without rather nasty adverse effects, cancers etc. Gene insertion will not fix existing DNA damage that the cell hasn't repaired anyway. In any case, given the world population is over 7 billion and not showing much sign of stopping increasing I don't think either is desirable. Better to come to terms with our long enough lifespan and make the most of what we have.

@DeepThought
We humans have already longer lives due to advances in medicine and nutrition, double what it was 500 years ago.
It seems to me we could all live to be 100 on average just based on further gains in medicine and nutrition and exercise regimes before even getting to DNA repair and such.

For instance, it has just been announced we can stop hardening of the arteries from advancing using a well known antibiotic that does that job, not known to have had that effect before this research.
Just as one example.

@metal-brain said
Why can't people extend their own life span genetically? I think this subject deserves more attention than it is getting. There is a reason some species live longer than others and it is mostly genetic.

https://mymodernmet.com/greenland-shark-oldest-vertebrate/?fbclid=IwAR0Kp7JTxreavkBUhN5oYd7xGtgern8T51CIXh1853GVZMeUvzQZUh96VrE

I think we've had this conversation before. The clock is your metabolism. Metabolic rate is inversely proportional to maximum lifespan. You can slow your own metabolism by eating a lot less. This has been effectively demonstrated with worms and mice.

For a variety of reasons different species evolved for faster/slower metabolisms. There is growing enthusiasm that this can be adjusted, as mice are being engineered that are living more than 2x longer than normal. That's kind of insane.

This article might interest you...
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/350/6265/1186.full

@deepthought said
@Metal-Brain
It's not clear to me what you mean by this. Do you mean modification to the germ line, so that future generations live longer or do you mean some sort of retrovirus infection which inserts "live long" genes? At a technical level I'm not sure either will work without rather nasty adverse effects, cancers etc. Gene insertion will not fix existing DNA damage ...[text shortened]... desirable. Better to come to terms with our long enough lifespan and make the most of what we have.

Selective breeding can lengthen life span. This has been proven with flies. Find out which changes took place and then ask yourself if it can be done.

Why do you think population increase is bad? Besides, people do not always die of old age. People die in cars, war and risky selfies. Are you condoning genocide to decrease the population? If more people is bad, less people is good, right?

@wildgrass said
I think we've had this conversation before. The clock is your metabolism. Metabolic rate is inversely proportional to maximum lifespan. You can slow your own metabolism by eating a lot less. This has been effectively demonstrated with worms and mice.

For a variety of reasons different species evolved for faster/slower metabolisms. There is growing enthusiasm that this ca ...[text shortened]... ne.

This article might interest you...
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/350/6265/1186.full

That is only one factor. How does selective breeding lengthen life span? Can you prove it is linked to metabolism? I doubt it.

@metal-brain said
Can you prove it is linked to metabolism?

Yes, we can prove a 'link', not to be confused with that necessarily being a 'direct causal link', between longevity and metabolism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rate-of-living_theory
https://www.cell.com/article/S0092-8674(16)30981-3/fulltext
https://jeb.biologists.org/content/216/8/1388
etc.

There is no doubt there IS a 'link'.
But whether that 'link' is a 'direct causal link', meaning whether simply by lowering you metabolic rate you will cause yourself to have naturally a longer life span, is a more controversial theory that some albeit not all scientists despite. There is some evidence for it but there also on the rarer occasion evidence that appears to contradict a direct causal link. My best guess is that its probably generally true but with many complicating factors and exceptions making that causal link anything but 'simple'.

@humy said
Yes, we can prove a 'link', not to be confused with that necessarily being a 'direct causal link', between longevity and metabolism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rate-of-living_theory
https://www.cell.com/article/S0092-8674(16)30981-3/fulltext
https://jeb.biologists.org/content/216/8/1388
etc.

There is no doubt there IS a 'link'.
But whether that 'link' is a 'direct c ...[text shortened]... rue but with many complicating factors and exceptions making that causal link anything but 'simple'.

How does selective breeding lengthen life span? Can you prove it is linked to metabolism and nothing else? I doubt it.

You are dismissing the possibility of other factors in longevity. The fruit flies that were selectively bred to have a longer lifespan were not calorie restricted.

I am specifically talking about the fruit flies that were selectively bred, not longevity in general. You digressed away from the flies.

@Metal-Brain

In the article I posted, they discuss a fly genetics study in which selective breeding is used to prolong lifespan (by a lot). It turns out the genes that were selected for are related to metabolism.

Here is the cross-species analysis in a range of mammals and birds. It's not a perfect correlation, but lifetime energy turnover per unit weight remains relatively constant in many different species over a range of lifespans.

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-relationship-between-basal-metabolic-rate-and-maximum-life-span-of-birds-and-mammals_fig1_51113341

@metal-brain said
How does selective breeding lengthen life span?

I didn't say it did.
Are you yet again hallucinating imaginary conversations between me and you that never took place? It was wildgrass that commented something vaguely about this, NOT me, and it has nothing to do with what I just said.

Can you prove it is linked to metabolism and nothing else?

Why should I? Did you even bother to read what I just said? WHERE did I say/imply longevity is ONLY linked to metabolism? I didn't and I don't think such a thing in particular. There are also telomerase involved in aging.

You are dismissing the possibility of other factors in longevity.

Lair! I am saying the exact opposite. Genes play a part too. STOP LYING.
Which part of there being "many complicating factors and exceptions" (my quote) did you not understand?

@humy said
I didn't say it did.
Are you yet again hallucinating imaginary conversations between me and you that never took place? It was wildgrass that commented something vaguely about this, NOT me, and it has nothing to do with what I just said.

Can you prove it is linked to metabolism and nothing else?

Why should I? Did you even bother to read what I just said? WHERE di ...[text shortened]... ch part of there being "many complicating factors and exceptions" (my quote) did you not understand?

Well then, you had no point and were just trolling again. Why do you comment about nothing? If you didn't disagree with me why did you bother wasting time pretending you did?

@wildgrass said
@Metal-Brain

In the article I posted, they discuss a fly genetics study in which selective breeding is used to prolong lifespan (by a lot). It turns out the genes that were selected for are related to metabolism.

Here is the cross-species analysis in a range of mammals and birds. It's not a perfect correlation, but lifetime energy turnover per unit weight remains rela ...[text shortened]... e-relationship-between-basal-metabolic-rate-and-maximum-life-span-of-birds-and-mammals_fig1_51113341

It is a lengthy article. Can you copy and paste an excerpt about the fruit fly selective breeding?

@metal-brain said
Well then, you had no point and were just trolling again.

No, I was commenting about what I knew about the research results in this OP subject matter because I thought you just might be interested but instead you just through that back into my face and started trolling again. Why did you do that? Did I say anything in my last post above to offend you? If so, exactly where and how so?

@metal-brain said
It is a lengthy article. Can you copy and paste an excerpt about the fruit fly selective breeding?

Sure.... here you go.

RESEARCHERS WHO STUDY Drosophila melanogaster, the fruit fly elevated to super star status in genetic studies by Nobel laureate Thomas Hunt Morgan, have never reported a Yoda, GHR-KO 11C, or IdG1-030. “There is no oldest fly,” says Marc Tatar, an evolutionary biologist at Brown University. “We don't really pay that much attention. People who work on Drosophila look at cohorts and populations.”

Nobody even knows the average life span of Drosophila, Tatar says, because the flies are so sensitive to diet, temperature, access to mates, and other environmental forces. “In my lab, the average might be 40, 50 days, and long-lived ones might be 80 or 90.” That said, his lab and others have shown that they can produce long-lived fly populations by mutating genes—including the comically named Indy (I'm not dead yet)—that affect metabolic pathways.