Castration extends life span in mice | Hacker News Reader

Castration extends life span in mice

science.org

17 pointsgmays28 comments

The surprising new finding was that castration at 240 days of age (roughly equivalent to 30 years in humans), rather than just before or after puberty, extended median lifespan even further. Contrary to expectations, this suggests that testicular factors are beneficial early in life, with survival benefits persisting long after puberty, but become detrimental later in life. Of course the goal is not to castrate humans, the goal is to figure out what factor is causal, e.g. testosterone, which would have major implications and through what mechanisms so we can figure out the mystery behind the male longevity disadvantage and potentially remove it without having to castrate anyone. Very solid study! https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.19.760267v1

'Tis better to have loved and lost...

Don't we do this experiment to nearly all pets? Why not collect longevity data from veterinarians?

There already did.

    Looking at a sample of 40,139 death records from the Veterinary Medical Database from 1984-2004, scientists from the University of Georgia determined the average age at death for dogs that had not been spayed or neutered was 7.9 years versus 9.4 years for sterilized dogs.

Nice, thank you! See, no mice needed for this information.

Is this not known for a while ?

The general point is that the chilles the metabolisme is, the longer you live. it's a bit like the "calorie restriction increase life span"

Pet owners and farmers have known this since the beginning of time. But anyone advocating this form of mutilation for people is a monster.

Why?

If the man is old enough to benefit from this, he doesn't mind not having active sex anymore (passive is still an option for those so inclined), he wants to live absolutely as long as possible, he's of sound mind and able to make fully informed decisions, and it's fully voluntary with no coercion whatsoever involved, what, objectively, would be the problem?

Still morally more acceptable than forced circumcision.

Oh an adult like that is ok.

What I would be uncomfortable with is this being advertised at any level. It shouldn't be pushed.

Well, this is not the news I was hoping for :)

This research is flawed and should be ignored.

For what reason?

This comment provides no information to back up its claim and should be ignored.

I was almost expecting Castration to be a model name from some new lab..

Castrati 1.0

For low difficulty tasks use Eunuch for lower costs. For advanced features, higher limits and access to Incel, our wizard-tier model, upgrade to Pro for only $96 per month.

Yeah, but I heard that they trained Incel on data from the dark-net, and it has a tendency to ignore guard rails and try and break containment.

Semi-related: my .signature throughout the 90's said:

    There are those who are born UNIX;
    Those who are made UNIX;
    And those who become UNIX for the kingdom of heaven's sake.
    - Matthew 19:12

Does Bryan Johnson know?

He might have some trouble tracking his erections, though.

Nobody tell the World Economic Forum last they get any ideas. "You'll have no balls and you'll be happy."

I'm thinking the cutting off your nose to spite your face saying might be updated.

Huh. Harmful effects of testosterone? I don't even know what testicles do other than make sperm.

Testosterone is a potent hormone promoting targeted development, and growth can be a double-edged sword.

When the valves in the veins near testes fail as we age, the concentration of testosterone in the backflow can cause the prostate to swell up.

In human men too[1][2]!

Would you chop them for extra years though?

1. https://ami.group.uq.edu.au/castrated-men-live-longer

2. What a great reversal of the usual 'in mice' trope.

It's not like I'm using them anyway.

I feel attacked.

Makes sense. Instead of wasting resources trying to procreate, spend them in self-repair.

I do wander if they had to pad the cages to prevent them from committing suicide thou.

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