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Comment by qgin | Hacker News Reader

Having children or grandchildren is even more of a reason to be interested in research that prevents the diseases of aging (longevity). When you get the diseases of aging that precede death, like Alzheimer’s or cancer or heart disease or just simply becoming frail, your children and grandchildren suffer greatly. What is narcissistic about not wanting your children and grandchildren to watch you suffer one or more of the extremely predictable diseases of aging and perhaps need to stop their own lives to become your caretaker?

Longevity research has never been about extending the sick part of life. It’s about avoiding the sick part of life for as long as possible.

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The history of extending human life through sanitation, disease prevention (vaccines and antibiotics), and treatment for chronic conditions has so far led to even worse conditions brought on by age. Centuries ago almost no one lived long enough to die from heart disease, cancer, or dementia. Now those are common, diseases of old age, imposing tremendous costs. I don’t propose going back to 35 year lifespans or some kind on Logan’s Run future, but we may have to acknowledge diminishing returns of extending lifespans through treatment of (not cures for) chronic conditions of aging. Nature seems to have imposed limits on lifespan, and viewing aging as a condition to cure seems both unnatural and narcissistic. It’s also a path that will be available mainly to the wealthy and powerful.

As much as I’d like to live to 120 to see my own grandkids grow up, I’m not sure I want 100-year-old members of Congress, or Presidents, or business tycoons. We all need to make room for the next generation at some point.

I’m 61 with grandkids. I don’t look forward to my body and mind falling apart, a process already well underway. I hope to die suddenly and unexpectedly (as Julius Caesar supposedly said) rather than lingering on for years in a bed fed through a tube while my family feels obligated to keep me alive as long as technologically possible.

I think that’s the big difference between how medicine up until now has approached aging and how longevity research approaches aging. Longevity research is about preventing the state that causes people to get those diseases of aging in the first place, not trying to find bandaids once people are already sick. Can’t imagine how preventing Alzheimer’s, cancer, and heart disease could be a bad thing.

> Centuries ago almost no one lived long enough to die from heart disease, cancer, or dementia.

Right, they were dying of infections, starvation, childbirth and cholera, appendicitis and anthrax, typhoid and typhus, polio and tetanus. Are you saying that those were better?

Talking only about elderly people, not children or young adults, I would say it's better to die quickly rather than withering away from cancer or dementia over many years. That would be my preference, and the few people in my family who have slowly wasted away from incurable chronic conditions expressed a desire to just end it. That doesn't mean dying from an infection or sepsis is somehow better than dying from cancer or dementia, but acute conditions get closer to the sudden and unexpected death I would prefer. Other people have different opinions on this, of course.

>Centuries ago almost no one lived long enough to die from heart disease, cancer, or dementia. Now those are common, diseases of old age, imposing tremendous costs. I don’t propose going back to 35 year lifespans

This is false. The life expectancy one you reached puberty was very similar to the current one. The 35 years lifespans were due to insane infant mortality. Modern medicine has been able to avoid the death of children but it hasn't being able to extend the duration of your healthy life other than from the statistical point of view.

I was careful to use the term "lifespan" rather than "life expectancy" to avoid this error. Historically people died mainly of infections or sepsis. Modern medicine has developed treatments for those, so now cancer, heart disease, and dementia -- formerly fairly rare because people would die of something else first -- are the leading causes of death among the elderly. These conditions, which can take years to cause death, require long-term expensive treatment, with very little difference in average lifespan of people who reach adulthood.

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