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posted by n1 on Thursday April 24 2014, @11:17PM   Printer-friendly
from the i'm-invincible dept.

Death is the one certainty in life, a pioneering analysis of blood from one of the world's oldest and healthiest women has given clues to why it happens.

What they found suggests, as we could perhaps expect, that our lifespan might ultimately be limited by the capacity for stem cells to keep replenishing tissues day in day out. Once the stem cells reach a state of exhaustion that imposes a limit on their own lifespan, they themselves gradually die out and steadily diminish the body's capacity to keep regenerating vital tissues and cells, such as blood.

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  • (Score: 1) by opinionated_science on Thursday April 24 2014, @11:19PM

    by opinionated_science (4031) on Thursday April 24 2014, @11:19PM (#35839)

    now all we need is a defintive lab test for stem cells...

    is it telomeres? surface receptors?

  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Theophrastus on Friday April 25 2014, @02:06AM

    by Theophrastus (4044) on Friday April 25 2014, @02:06AM (#35895)

    ...there is likely no reason that mitosis can't be taught tricks from meiosis (errors need not monotonically accumulate). the catch is avoiding cancer on the way. there are viral transmitted cancers. perhaps they can be engineered to renew stem cells in-situ. (of course then one has the plot to a dark video game)

    • (Score: 2) by TheLink on Friday April 25 2014, @02:53AM

      by TheLink (332) on Friday April 25 2014, @02:53AM (#35906) Journal

      there is likely no reason that mitosis can't be taught tricks from meiosis (errors need not monotonically accumulate). the catch is avoiding cancer on the way

      Thing is when you've only recently started from just one cell (after two combine), the question "Are These Cells Are Part of This Body?" is easy to answer. But zillions of cell splits and decades later, I suspect the lines get a lot blurrier.

      So I'm sure the immune system at a later stage can't be so strict otherwise we'd get a lot more auto-immune diseases or massive organ rejection. e.g. Benign tumour? Possibly. Do we get rid of it? Well if we do there'd be a hole that would be refilled with scar tissue or even another tumour (since the reproducing mechanism is falling apart too!)...

      But see also: http://www.nature.com/news/massive-animals-may-hol d-secrets-of-cancer-suppression-1.12258 [nature.com]
      However if we try the whale's approach there might not be any quick or easy fixes.

      We can't even extend a mouse lifespan by that much, without some serious compromises: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methuselah_Foundatio n [wikipedia.org]
      (and perhaps the stuff we figure out to get a mouse to live longer might be still inferior to what humans already have built-in to live longer than mice).

      [1] I personally suspect that some form of "Lamarckism" would be too useful to not have evolved by now. And seems like many recent findings indicate that some form of it is around via epigenetics at least.

    • (Score: 1) by mrchew1982 on Friday April 25 2014, @08:15PM

      by mrchew1982 (3565) on Friday April 25 2014, @08:15PM (#36316)

      Cancers that are caused by a virus are not viral. When the virus splices its genes into ours it does so indiscriminately and disrupts the DNA that controls our normal cellular processes. The cancer is actually our cells running amok, not a virus trying to fulfill its purpose (reproduction and transmission).

      Using a virus to alter genetic function is known as "Genetic Therapy" or "Gene Therapy" and has been tried many many times. It has even been made to work in limited cases, but usually it causes cancer in broader trials. Our genes are unique enough that choosing an insertion site for the therapy is hard! What works on one person (or even a small group) doesn't seem to work for everyone. Until we can map a person's genome quickly and affordably, then design and build the virus to suit each individual (affordably!) I doubt that we will be able to make it work.

      But the way that the FDA trial process is set up it would be nearly impossible to have it certified for use. Add to that the fact that there are no economies of scale to be had (personally tailored medicines can't be mass produced) and the prospects are dim for anyone but the super rich (who seem to be more content to buy organs on the black market!)

  • (Score: 2) by WizardFusion on Friday April 25 2014, @09:25AM

    by WizardFusion (498) Subscriber Badge on Friday April 25 2014, @09:25AM (#35991) Journal

    So the fabled fountain of youth is actually made of our own blood.

    • (Score: 2) by clone141166 on Friday April 25 2014, @10:36AM

      by clone141166 (59) on Friday April 25 2014, @10:36AM (#36010)

      And explains why vampires are immortal and whatnot as well I suppose.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 25 2014, @08:21PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 25 2014, @08:21PM (#36319)

        Just go for the young and pretty! Brings new meaning to "tastes old!"

  • (Score: 1) by CoolHand on Friday April 25 2014, @01:03PM

    by CoolHand (438) on Friday April 25 2014, @01:03PM (#36036) Journal

    Assuming that this might be the key to perpetual life, are we sure that is something that we really want? If anyone could cheaply make use of this to extend their lifespan as long as they wanted, then that would surely lead to draconian birth control laws out of necessity for population control. That, in turn, would be the end of natural evolution of our species. We couldn't even count on our own genetic engineering to improve our species, as we, in all likelihood, wouldn't be able to produce new improved humans at any rate to matter (due to population control). The only way to offset that risk would be to enforce euthenasia at a certain age (or ages - there could be some sort of system that would qualify you for prolonged "grants" or something)

    --
    Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
    • (Score: 1) by broken on Friday April 25 2014, @07:18PM

      by broken (4018) on Friday April 25 2014, @07:18PM (#36276) Journal

      Assuming that this might be the key to perpetual life, are we sure that is something that we really want?

      This is not the key to perpetual life, as "old age" is not the only, or even the leading, cause of death. Deaths by cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer's would be unaffected by treating the gradual loss of blood stem cells discussed in the article.

      As long as there is an average of one child per person (two per couple, but with cloning we may not need two people to produce children in the future) and lifespan does not increase "too quickly", the population will not increase. One straightforward and fair (i.e. non-draconian) way to accomplish this is to not allow anyone to have children until both of their parents (or all four of their grandparents) are dead. There may be a population increase until equilibrium is reached, but then there will be no net gain in population. In fact, it will decrease unless something is done about people dying without having their full child allotment.

      Evolution of the species is not a desirable end in itself. Resorting to euthanasia to merely speed it up seems like an extreme solution to a non-problem.

      Another point is that once immortality is achieved, a species is by definition perfectly adapted to its environment so no evolution is necessary. Some species go millions of years without changing. Why need humans be different?