Talk:Life extension/Archive 2

This is an archive of past discussions about Life extension. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Someone add this stuff

There is serious research that, in mouse models, extends health and lifespan. This should be included in the current article. One promising line is the over-expression of superoxide dismutase delivered via an AAV vector. There is some contradiction as to which SOD gene to overexpress, with most research pointing to SOD-1, SOD2 or Mn-SOD. Recent research have shown that mouse models don't necessarily translate to human models (in ALS ... not or longevity ... the treatment developed or ALS may work for longevity and age-related dementia, it is references as such, but it hasn't been modeled at all). Someone should do a bit of background reading and include it. This article is EXTREMELY short on the real cutting-edge life extension research that is being done in a peer-reviewed manner. It's mostly full of nay-saying nonsense about historical snake oil. I tried to add some legitimate stuff, but it was swiftly deleted. Check out http://www.ihop-net.org/UniPub/iHOP/gs/124762.html for some ideas. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.34.97.86 (talk) 17:09, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Extra material in the Ageing article

I added a section in Ageing on prevention and reversal. See here:[[1]]

I was looking to start a compendium of ALL proven anti-aging drugs and treatments, since there are now quite a lot of therapies which actually work (none proven in humans unfortunately!) and persons looking to extend their lifespan might benefit from using several in conjunction. I wonder if this information would be better placed in this article; there should at least be a reference to it. Darmot and gilad (talk) 09:07, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Progress

I agree with the recent split of content by Phenylalanine, and suggest it be extended to some of the other sections of the article--this general article is not the place to discuss the details of the different methods. However, care should of course be taken to ensure that the remaining stub of the section summarizes the relevant controversial elements--I'm not sure this was done fully, and a summary paragraph in addition to the prize material needs to be added. Equally important, all the necessary material should be moved. I have therefore gone to the Engineered negligible senescence article, and added the deleted material there. I p[resume it was not the objective to remove the material regarding the specific scientific obijections from both places. DGG (talk) 21:01, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

I notice the material on criticism of the SENS theory moved from here, but not reinserted there, has been removed there. There must be a criticism section here in proportion to the section describing the theory. I hope someone who actually understands the topic better than I can write it--I am here mainly to maintain NPOV, not from any interest in the subject. But if nobody else does, I'll give it a try. DGG (talk) 04:35, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm with DGG on that but have a slightly more drastic plan in mind that hopefully will improve the life extension of the article. While I can't "add" or comment on the subject from a technical viewpoint I took a look at Life extension#SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence). My immediate perception is that it's without any citations/references though there's an implicit reference in that Aubrey de Grey and his book Ending Aging are mentioned. I also saw that while other LE methods have a "Ethics and politics" sub-section that it's now missing from SENS. One concern with the recent edit history besides the blanket removal of SENS criticism by User:Phenylalanine is he/she appears to have a Wikipedia:Conflict of interest, at minimum under Campaigning. The evidence, besides removing the criticisms here, include using Aubrey de Grey quotes on his home page and nominating competing systems such as NeoSENS for deletion. Having an agenda is fine with me but it needs to be applied in an even handed way.

I'd be inclined to just revert the deletion but something that bothers me about the Life Extension article is that it's complicated and made more so by people posturing for/against various LE methods. A thought is to take a look at the religion article where what could be an enormously controversial and divisive subject that many hold dear to heart is handled in a pretty even handed way. I see that it was done, not by dividing the article into sections on "major religions," but rather into divisions of types or categories of religions. Even the better known religions are mentioned in the body text and not even as sub-sub-sections. I've found WP:MOS to be good reading too.

In looking at the article in a way it's already close to just showing ways of LE with the exceptions being that Chemical and genetic interventions in non-human animals seems to be all about Resveratrol and the entire subject of SENS is a one-person concept and not a general body of knowledge. Thus I'd vote for removing both of those sections with Resveratrol, SENS, NeoSENS, all being mention passing as "see also." Like the religion article, sweep through and remove anything that is pushing a particular person or group's views, beliefs, and/or theories. NPOV does not mean we need to present argument / counterargument.

Another problem I have with the article is that it puts far too much attention on the what seem like "snake oil" methods. Basically they are unproven for humans concepts. Very little of the article is about the proven stuff such as exercise and a diet that has fruits, veggies, and all the other things most of our parents said was good for us such as to not take up smoking, drugs, etc. The article says "Currently, the only widely recognized method of extending maximum lifespan is calorie restriction." and yet calorie restriction only gets 165 words out of a 5,602 word article followed by 195 words of criticism. That's not even three percent for CR and it's the *only* widely recognized method of LE? I know I'm talking about a pretty dramatic change to the article and am interested in seeing what the thoughts are. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 05:08, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Marc's idea to refocus the article. Some mention of this dark history of life extension should be noted... at the bottom, and in a much more abbreviated form. Another example of its bias is the mention that some bioethicists doubt whether it should be "done".... but there's no mention of those that assert the opposite... that failure to pursue life extension technologies would be unethical. Indeed, today, you would be hard pressed to find any reputable bioethicist that says otherwise, just do a search for the bioethics of life extension. Simul (talk) 09:13, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

It think it'd be worth including a link to the article on blastocycts as part of the ethical discussion, where relevant. Aubrey de Grey's book (Ending aging) says blastocycts haven't decided to become anything, much less a human embryo and that they're just clumps or balls of cells. In this regard, using them to get embryonic stem cells should pose no problem to bioethics. Shtanto (talk) 01:13, 21 March 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.100.38.132 (talk)

Sugar containing foods

I'm not so happy about this "..avoidance of hazards such as smoking and excessive eating of sugar-containing foods.." in the lead. Smoking is well documented but "excessive eating of sugar-containing foods" ?! I guess it refers to sucrose but this statement on sugar-containing foods implies that, if taken to the logical conclusion, we shouldn't eat any carbohydrates. I've removed it. Nk.sheridan Talk 22:07, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Can anyone explain what the "vegetable extract" is that immortalizes yeast cells? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.193.249.146 (talk) 07:19, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

No "drive-by" tagging

Changes to this article, notably to the controversial external links should be discussed thoroughly beforehand and not tagged without discussion. If you "taggers" want changes then make an argument for those changes in the discussion page -- item by item -- rather than drop your tag and run. --GirlForLife (talk) 02:13, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

A reference point for discussion has been given for the external links on this page: Talk:Life_extension/Archive_1#Justify_your_deletions. "Drive-by" taggers would do well to note these points and engage in specific discussion if changes are sought. --GirlForLife (talk) 15:49, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Telomeres

Does anyone else here think that a section on Telomeres should be added? Modern science have shown that these end-parts of DNA/chromosomes shorten over an organism's lifetime and this leads to the aging process. It has been hypothesized that lengthening of these Telomeres could slow down or reverse the aging process and thus extend life. What do you guys thinks? Fatrb38 (talk) 07:19, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I do. I followed a link to this page from the telomere page and was surprise to see that it wasn't mentioned. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.96.23.139 (talk) 13:13, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

= Telomeres keep cell lines alive longer, but not organisms. Stem cells don't have shortening telomeres. They continually produce cells indefinitely. Keeping cell lines alive longer by lengthening telomeres has been shown to cause cancer. Better to get stem cells to produce more new ones, and get old cells to die faster. Old cell lines != longer life. 69.134.54.59 (talk) 23:08, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Need to cover maximum vs. average lifespan

The article should cover the distinction between maximum and average lifespan extension. Specifically how it is often easier to extend the average lifespan by extending the lifespan of shorter lived individuals, rather than by extending lifespan of longer lived ones. (infant mortality, etc.)

Life expectancy, etc. already has coverage of this to some extent, so probably doesn't need detailed coverage here. But does deserve clarification/mention, especially since the lead mentions extending average life expectancy. Zodon (talk) 11:13, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Anageria

This is the 'scientific' name for what you are discussing, if anyone knows about it, maybe someone could add something about this condition. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dankelly83 (talk • contribs) 15:02, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Mind uploading section

This section has very little neuroscience or modern psychology included. We do in fact have explanations for the human consciousness. YVNP (talk) 23:58, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Proposed merger with Anti-aging

The anti-aging page is a mess of disorganized and unsubstantiated claims for various nostrums, compared to this article which has a greater emphasis on basic science. Incorporating anti-aging into the life extension page would be messy and would reduce the quality of this page. It would be better to leave anti-aging where it is. --GirlForLife (talk) 15:38, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

That might be the best thing to do, though I would prefer if the few parts of it not already here be moved here, and the page be deleted. I don't see what validity it is for the separate pages. Stenemo (talk) 19:21, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

This discussion has not excited much interest, and I believe that this merger proposal should be dropped soon. I still do not want junk on the anti-aging page to end up on the life extension page. Deleting the anti-aging page would make the life-extension page an even greater magnet for junk. So I still oppose the merger and I still advocate leaving the anti-aging page where it is. --GirlForLife (talk) 21:15, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I am removing the merger suggestion. ----GirlForLife (talk)

I've renewed the merger suggestion. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 03:50, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Merger

I've merged Life extension with Anti-aging and renamed to "Anti-aging medicine", a name often used by advocates of this movement, even though not everything under this umbrella is truly medicine. Some of what I could salvage from "Anti-aging" is in a dump at the end of this article. I will work on cleaning this up over the next few days and would welcome any assistance. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 22:17, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

I object to the rename, per WP:COMMONNAME. The Transhumanist 20:11, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

And I object to your re-rename, per WP:COMMONNAME. "Life extension" is a generic, ambiguous term that some in the anti-aging industry apply as a specific term to what they do (despite the lack of evidence that they've ever extended anyone's life); it's a sort of brand, if you will. "Anti-aging medicine" is a broader term that is used by independent sources. Whether you're looking at scientific sources or news reports, "anti-aging medicine" is the common name for the broad approach described in this article. This might be different in WP:FRINGE sources, but they are of little or no importance for this encyclopaedia. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 22:01, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

SENS

I've reduced the SENS section and named it "combination strategies", which I suggest is an accurate and descriptive title. SENS is already described in detail elsewhere on Wikipedia, including in the articles linked; there's no reason to repeat all of this information here.

I'm also concerned about WP:WEIGHT and thus uncomfortable even with naming SENS as an example, since we don't give detailed examples of the personalities and companies behind the other anti-aging approaches described here. And for an article with "medicine" in the title, the sources on de Grey are wobbly (not that they aren't for most of the others). Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 23:20, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Page move without discussion?

Transhumanist accuses me of moving the page without discussion. Indeed, I did, but unlike Transhumanist, I posted a notice on the talk page. Earlier, I had proposed a merger with "anti-aging" but had received little feedback.

I am interested in learning why Transhumanist feels the "life extension" title is better than "anti-aging medicine." To me, it seems that "anti-aging medicine" is the broader, more inclusive name. Anti-aging medicine, as described in this article, includes cosmetic and palliative approaches such as some of the most popular anti-aging "remedies." "Life extension," on the other hand, excludes Botox and growth hormone therapies which aim for a reduction in apparent age, not an actual extension of one's lifespan. One could argue that "life extension" is a fantasy term, since there is no scientific evidence that any intervention of the sort discussed here (as opposed to public health and mainstream medical measures) has ever extended the life of even one person. "Anti-aging medicine" is a bit generous, since it's not really medicine, strictly speaking, but the title at least includes the various approaches described here. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 19:03, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

What about the effect on average life expectancy of the life-extending strategies of clean water, sanitation utilities (sewers), vaccines, and antibiotics? Aspirin has been proven to prevent heart attacks, and so that also affects average life expectancy. The truth is there have been scientific longevity studies on humans. Though it's been awhile since I studied them. I'll see what I can find. Besides, there are other kinds of scientific evidence. Observations and analyses of metabolic and biochemical processes, for example. Such evidence results in new hypotheses being formed. And in light of the fact that in a successful longevity study the participants will outlive the rest of us, the only ways to obtain life extension benefits beyond those that are currently proven, is to either get into one of those studies (and be lucky enough not to be in the control group - that is, not be one of those who are given the placebo) or to guess. The first option seems problematic (you have to be chosen at random), so the best approach appears to be to find the best educated guesses available. Intelligent strategies take into account options that aren't proven, weighing additional factors such as cost and risk and known health benefits. When intelligent and reliable scientists produce a well-thought out hypothesis that a relatively safe substance is likely to increase life-expectancy when taken in a particular (relatively safe) dose range, taking it at those dose levels is worth considering. As long as there isn't much to lose, and you're getting other (proven) benefits as well, what the heck. The Transhumanist 22:40, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

We should be guided in the choice of names by which terms are most often used by reliable, independent sources. For example, thousands of news articles from independent organisations address the exact term "anti-aging medicine". And it's unambiguous what they mean by this. In contrast, "life extension" is ambiguous, and a search for the term in news articles turns up "life extension" for this or that software package and "life extension" for an industrial site, an old building, a piece of legislation. Comparatively few sources use "life extension" in its meaning as a part of the anti-aging industry. It seems that "life extension" in this sense is more of a brand name promoted by several companies and individuals, rather than a term in wide use by independent sources. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 19:29, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

I went looking around, and I didn't see the same results you claim to have found. Here's what I saw:

In PubMed (a database of medical journal articles), "life extension" came up 268 times, while "anti-aging medicine" turned up only 80 times.
In WorldCat, "life extension" showed up 2,169 times, while "anti-aging medicine" got 411 hits. Scrolling through the life extension titles, the vast majority appeared to be health-related.
In Google Book in-title searches, "life extension" returned 76 titles, with a few non-health items included. "anti-aging medicine" returned 20
In Google News in-title searches, "life extension" came up 9 times while "anti-aging medicine" got no results at all
In Google News general searches, "life extension" plus "health" got 34 while "anti-aging medicine" came up 12 times
In Google in-title web searches, "life extension" got 73,500 hits but "anti-aging medicine" returned only 15,500. Scrolling through the life extension results, the vast majority appeared to be health-related.
In unrestricted general Google web searches, "life extension" got 1 million 580 thousand hits and "anti-aging medicine" produced 517 thousand. Adding "health" as an additional search term along with "life extension" resulted in 929 thousands hits.
On the New York Times' website, searches there turned up "life extension" 510 times and "anti-aging medicine" 336 times

Please provide me with your sources. I would love to check them. The Transhumanist 22:18, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, you're including in your results all of the many generic uses of the words "life extension". Take your PubMed search, for example. The first hit is "Effect of absorbent pads containing oregano essential oil on the shelf life extension of overwrap packed chicken drumsticks stored at four degrees Celsius." followed by "Combined effect of an oxygen absorber and oregano essential oil on shelf life extension of rainbow trout fillets stored at 4 degrees C." And so on. In contrast, it's obvious what "anti-aging medicine" means, and that most or all of the hits from the anti-aging medicine search are relevant to this article.

The question is not what The Transhumanist finds in a google search but, rather, what the experts use to refer to the general movement that seeks to counteract or reverse the effects of aging. I don't personally agree with the term "anti-aging medicine", because I see no evidence of an effect on aging, but it does seem to be the common term used by experts in this field to describe the anti-aging movement/industry. A good measure of this is the titles of reviews in the medical literature: Do medical reviews addressing this movement call it "anti-aging medicine" or "life extension"?

Medical reviews on this movement include titles such as: Anti-aging medicine: pitfalls and hopes.; Hormone replacement Up-to-date. Hormone replacement therapy in anti-aging medicine; DDS for anti-aging and regenerative medicine (review); Contentious terminology and complicated cartography of anti-aging medicine.; Legal issues associated with the current and future practice of anti-aging medicine.; Anti-aging medicine: can consumers be better protected?; Anti-aging medicine--the good, the bad, and the ugly.; The foreseeability of real anti-aging medicine: focusing the debate.

In contrast, with few exceptions, including one by de Grey, review titles including "life extension" mostly focus on a process (including food shelf-life extension!), not on the movement or a broad approach described by "anti-aging medicine". Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 22:52, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

So "life extension" is not a synonym of "anti-aging medicine"? I think we've established that "Life extension" is notable. And if it isn't the same thing as anti-aging medicine, then it qualifies for its own article. I suggest removing those things from the article that do not pertain to (the strategies or goal of, or the effect known as) "life extension". The Transhumanist 23:21, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

"Life extension" has several meanings. The meaning relevant to this article is fully contained within the meaning of "anti-aging medicine". The latter also includes cosmetic and quality-of-life interventions. Because this article currently addresses all of these to some degree, and because "life extension" is ambiguous and includes meanings not addressed here, I feel that the current title is imperfect. If a new title could encompass everything currently in the article, there would be no need to delete portions and begin new articles elsewhere. That's why I changed the title: to me, it was the most elegant solution. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 23:48, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Where was the notability of "life extension" established? Looking through the links provided above from Google, I don't see how the phrase is notable in the context of techniques related to extending the life expectancy of humans. In the noted book title search, for example, of the first ten results, one was about science fiction technology, four were about extending the life span of power plants and/or pumping equipment, and three were published by a group that had "Life Extension" as part of it's name, and might not even be considered separate sources (at least one was titled as a companion volume to another). The Google general searches were much the same, either talking about engineering or shelf-life topics as mentioned by the previous respondent, or pages that discussed the Life Extension Foundation.

That being said, I am not sure if this fits into the topic of anti-aging medicine - is that not more hiding the effects of age, rather than extending life expectancy? This might be more appropriate as Experimental Gerontology, while anti-aging covers the more cosmetic side. --Interestingly average (talk) 17:04, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

That's weird, because for me, all the health-related stuff comes up at the beginning of the search results. I see hardly any non-health links. I'll see if I can refine the searches:

here's a more focused google books search

The Transhumanist 19:27, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

The "mainstream" medical reviews of the subject seem to use anti-aging medicine predominantly, and the reviews by others (and there aren't many in reputable scientific journals) are split. Even Aubrey de Grey seems to switch between the two, while Ronald Klatz, writing in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences in 2006, describes life extension as a part of anti-aging medicine (Klatz, "New Horizons for the Clinical Specialty of Anti-aging Medicine: The Future with Biomedical Technologies", 2006). Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 21:25, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

This seems to be a question of focus. If the article is supposed to be about extension of the human lifespan, then "life extension" is probably a good title, precisely because, as Keepcalmandcarryon says, it excludes methods aimed at reducing apparent age, such as cosmetics. If those methods, which currently are mentioned but hardly discussed at length, are to be included, then "anti-aging medicine" seems to be the title to use. Huon (talk) 00:30, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Very good point. Perhaps this article could be limited to that part of the anti-aging movement (which I think might be a good title for our umbrella article) which relates to at least a theory of life extension. No one thinks that keeping yourself looking young through cosmetic surgery directly results in life extension. Fred Talk 15:15, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

SENS POV

Green06 tagged the "combination strategies" section as POV because it was "biased against SENS - focuses on emotive terms - no mention of technology review controvery". He did not elaborate on the talk page. I removed that tag for the following reasons:

The section cites several scientific papers with multiple authors for its harsh criticism of SENS. I am not aware of any scientific support for SENS except by its founder, and no such sources are given. Thus, while highly critical of SENS, the section does correctly represent the position of the scientific community and is not unduly biased.
The "emotive terms" are directly quoted from said scientific articles. If Green06 wants to convey that meaning in different terms, he may feel free to make the attempt, but I see no reason why we shouldn't quote our sources.
The De Grey Technology Review controversy is too specific to be mentioned here. Any meaningful summary of the events, the claims and the results would be too long for what amounts to a minor section of this article.

I'd say that our section is balanced by reporting scientific consensus and not giving undue weight to a fringe theory. Huon (talk) 14:07, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

I endorse Huon's summary. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 20:21, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

I restored the POV tag. Do not remove it until the dispute has been resolved. The outcome of the technology review controversy should be briefly mentioned, as it is highly relevant. --Green06 (talk) 11:22, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

I have added a short mention of that outcome, but I think it's still too long and too irrelevant for this article. I'd propose rewriting the entire section: Remove any explicit mention of SENS, instead list some of the methods proposed to be combined, mention that several of them are highly speculative, probably backing it all up by the Holliday and Warner references. Huon (talk) 14:58, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

I disagree with the inclusion of the Technology Review article, which has little if any relevance as a source for the medical claims of SENS. SENS proponents often cite it as if it were some sort of proof of the relevance of SENS, ignoring that Technology Review is not a medical journal and that "has not been proven false" is not exactly a ringing endorsement (it also doesn't make much sense logically).

I also feel that the POV tag should be removed immediately, as there's no consensus for its inclusion and the section is well-sourced. If User:Green06 can provide sources of comparable quality that support SENS, we should certainly include them. If not, the section is as balanced as it's going to get. One's personal opinion is a poor reason to slap a POV tag on reliably-sourced text. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 21:14, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Four paragraphs are devoted to "mind uploading" and "cryonics", which have definitely not been proven to extend lifespan, so why is only half a sentence devoted to SENS without even mentioning the name? You say that "Technology Review" is not a reliable source and yet you have used it as a reference to criticize SENS. This article from the Technology review is definitely a reliable source. --Green06 (talk) 22:49, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Mind uploading and cryonics should probably not be in this article at all, or only in drastically reduced form. But WP:WEIGHT problems in other sections of the article are not an excuse to devote space to a minor theory that's received nothing but criticism, even ridicule, in relevant, reliable sources. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 14:54, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

This article is about "life extension" and cryonics and mind uploading are definitely relevant - having a couple of paragraphs on these topics is not undue weight. Also, "One part of the anti-aging movement has adopted the slogan SENS, for Strategically Engineered Negligible Senescence. The main protagonist is Aubrey de Grey, who has said: ‘‘I think that the first person to live to 1,000 may today be 60 years old.’’ (de Grey 2004)." [3] Therefore, half a sentence, without even mentioning SENS, won't do. I'm restoring the full section. --Green06 (talk) 15:28, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry, Green06, but opinion pieces by de Grey, who does not seem to have obvious qualifications in biology beyond a degree awarded for a popular book, won't do to support naming him or his movement in this article; you quote Holliday, but the quote supports the fringe nature of de Grey's beliefs. Holliday uses de Grey as an extreme example of what Holliday considers a belief system outside the bounds of science and medicine. According to the reliable sources on this topic, sources written by dozens of experts with academic qualifications in biology and medicine, SENS is a fringe theory. And, yes, Holliday does refer to de Grey and other "life extension" media sensations as pseudoscientific. The exact quote is, "a somewhat curious mixture of pseudo-science and wish-fulfillment." Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 20:26, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Could the combination strategies section be expanded? It doesn't seem to be adding much now.UnderHigh (talk) 21:02, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I added some examples of proposed techniques and reworded the "pseudoscience" sentence to clarify the objections. I also changed the section name because it's not just a combination of other methods we describe, but rather an entirely different set of treatments. Huon (talk) 23:46, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree changes are necessary, but we should emphasise that while some of these techniques exist, others are speculation. The biochemistry and genetics behind the proposed techniques themselves are fairly basic, not advanced, but their proposed application to the human organism is, according to the reliable sources, little more than science fiction. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 14:58, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm not quite happy with the rewrite. Why do we focus on the "combination" aspect? I'm no expert, but some of those proposed treatments, such as the cancer cure, would increase life expectancy on their own and thus satisfy the article's theme - the "combination" is proposed to stop all aging.

And while I agree that SENS is sci-fi, it's not more so than the other "proposed strategies" such as cryonics or mind uploading (and while body part replacement may become viable earlier, with transplantation of organs already possible, the extent necessary to achieve the desired goal of cheating old age is still unrealistic, too). How about rewording the title of the entire "Proposed strategies of life extension" section, maybe extending the introduction and mentioning that all those proposals are beyond current knowledge and technology? Huon (talk) 16:00, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Fine by me. My goal in this section is to avoid yet another SENS coatrack on Wikipedia, nothing more. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 20:47, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Mind uploading, suspended animation, cryonics

I'll branch this off from the SENS debate for better readability. I'd say that cryonics and suspended animation don't belong here. They're not ways to extend the human lifespan. Suspended animation's purpose is trauma care, and cryonics is sort of a one-way time machine. In both cases the patient technically isn't alive, and with cryonics I dare say that anybody doing it now won't ever become alive again. Besides, Ted Williams' body shouldn't concern us here. On the other hand, cryonics seem intimately related to the life extension movement, as discussed in our history section.

Mind uploading, on the other hand, may be seen as a way of achieving immortality. It is the electronic equivalent of body part replacement. There are obvious problems: It's in the realm of SF, and one could argue whether the uploaded mind is still alive and whether it's still human. But it's certainly considered by some as a way to cheat aging and death.

Thus, I suggest the complete removal of suspended animation, a shortening of cryonics with the focus on its use to preserve now-living (and now-dying) people until true methods of life extension become available, while mind uploading should be kept. Thoughts? Huon (talk) 16:38, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

I support your proposed changes. Cryonics, while outlandishly improbable at the moment, should be mentioned briefly. We can't predict with certainty that a cryopreserved body will never be successfully restored. I would even consider this more likely than a successful "mind upload". The philosophical issues (is a recorded mind still "alive" and "human"?) deserve a careful, but brief, treatment. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 20:34, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I believe the cryonics and suspended animation sections belong here. Setting aside their strong connection to the life extension movement; The argument that they are "not ways to extend the human lifespan" seems inaccurate. The purpose of cryonics is to preserve humans with the intent of future resuscitation. If successful, resuscitation would implicitly involve an extension of the persons (otherwise completed) human lifespan. Additional years of life, beyond resuscitation itself, may also be provided by the more advanced technologies that were presumably developed during the time that the person was suspended. The argument for cryonics is that without it, the person would die without any possibility (theoretical or otherwise) of having access to more advanced medical technologies.

The argument that resuscitation from cryonics is improbable, seems irrelevant. Almost all the technologies discussed under the life extension topic are unproven, and therefore until they exist, they are all subject to doubt and potential ridicule. In regards to its unproven basis, cryonics does not seem to be different from other life extension possibilities. BlakeJGL (talk) 01:37, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

This article is incredibly weak

This is both a real area of research, and a fertile ground for snake-oil salesmen. Why must Wikipedia focus on the snakeoil? There have been legitimate studies shown where genetic therapy was used to alter antioxidant activity in mice. This, in turn, increased the health and lifespan of the mice. But no, this article is filled with "mind uploading" and "hormone treatments" and other nonsense. Cocaine was once claimed to extend lifespan. Might as well write about that.

Quick list of legitimate life extension techs:

Calorie Restriction, Intermittent Fasting, and Methionine Restriction; Growth Hormone Knockout, IGF-1 and Insulin Signalling Manipulation; Telomerase Plus p53; Inactivating the CLK-1 Gene; SkQ, a Mitochondrially Targeted Ingested Antioxidant; Genetic Manipulation to Target Catalase to the Mitochondria; Genetic deletion of pregnancy-associated plasma protein A (PAPP-A); Knockout of the adenylyl cyclase type 5 (AC5) gene; Metformin used as a calorie restriction mimetic drug

FIRKO, or fat-specific insulin receptor knock-out mice; Removal of visceral fat by surgery; Overexpression of PEPCK-C, or phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase

69.134.54.59 (talk) 08:19, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I by and large agree with these statements. If there have been peer-reviewed-publications in the area of lifespan extension -- even in non-human species they should be noted. (And since there may be half-a-dozen or more of these in mice (where one is dealing with transgenic mice), and with ongoing reports with respect to CR studies in primates -- to sweep these under the rug is disingenuous. Every single one of the "lifespan extensions" with positive results should be documented in mice (or even other species) including those studies which include Gene Therapy. Gene Therapy was successful for treating SCID in a Palestinean child in 2002 in Israel, reported in "Cell of Cells" pg. 101. If that is not "Life extension" then I do not know what is! (SCID (baby in a bubble) handicapped children have a normal life expectancy of several years.) In addition there is a quite large bias in my opinion in the opening paragraph "Bioethicists question whether and how the human lifespan should be extended." You cite only ONE bioethicist, namely Leon Kass, who was hand-picked by a president who arguably (or politically) was against the concept of lifespan extension. I suspect if you had a general survey of bioethicists you would find many more in support of lifespan extension than against it -- it is problematic for a true bio-ethicist (one unbiased by religious perspective) that people should promote a natural death if the technology is available to prevent that). Why should one commit suicide if it is not necessary? This article as currently structured seems to be arguing that (a) lifespan extension is impossible -- (presumably flawed if you really understand the biochemistry and causes of aging); and (b) should be necessary (from a political / religico / socioeconomic framework) -- all of which are null and void if one really understands current trends involving microelectronics / bio / nanotechnology. We are entering a brave new world -- and encyclopedias have to either decide whether to adapt to what has been or what can be. (Note that I am not advocating any ideas or principles which break or even stretch known laws of physics/chemistry, etc.) All of my ideas are based on logical progressions of current technology where I can tell you how to get there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by RobertBradbury (talk • contribs) 05:37, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

You say "We are entering a brave new world -- and encyclopedias have to either decide whether to adapt to what has been or what can be." Actually, Wikipedia has decided, and the decision was to include only verifiable information from reliable published sources. However, in addition to proven science, we can also properly include information about the anti-aging movement as well as information about techniques that are being promoted and used, but which cannot be shown to be effective, or even wise. Fred Talk 15:24, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Propose merge

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result was do not merge into Life extension. -- DarkCrow^Caw 15:32, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Since anti-aging already redirects to this article, I propose we also merge the recently-created stub anti-aging movement, since it covers the same topic. Tim Vickers (talk) 20:04, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

The anti-aging movement is a social phenomena, not a medical subject.^[1] In addition to life extension, it includes events and concerns unrelated to life extension. The movement exists and is of interest regardless of the viability of life extension. Merger is a poor idea that would diminish the usefulness of the encyclopedia to the reader. Fred Talk 18:41, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Frankly, life extension is speculative hokum, while the anti-aging movement exists. What you're proposing is analogous to merging religion into heaven. Fred Talk 19:49, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

It is not covered and cannot be as the subject of this article is a social movement, not a medical technique. Fred Talk 19:19, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

That isn't true, since this life extension article already has a section on the "History of life extension and the life extension movement". Tim Vickers (talk) 20:09, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

But that is a different and more limited subject. Anti-aging includes other concerns such as health, vigor and appearance. In addition, most gerontologists would not consider themselves part of the anti-aging movement, which precisely because it is a movement, they reject. Fred Talk 22:01, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Support merge. No reason for two article about what is essentially the same subject: a social movement using medical terminology/a medical movement with social not scientific support. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 02:44, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

What does this have to do with life extension? Fred Talk 14:15, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

You are right, Fred. There are chains of "anti-aging" stores in Canada that deal entirely with skin creams claiming to stop skin aging without having anything to do with extending life. --Ben Best (talk) 22:24, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Support merge. Verbal chat 21:46, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
Support. Without delay, I think this should be done. ScienceApologist (talk) 19:47, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
Oppose. This proposal should really be restarted, as it was proposed over two months ago with few takers. Life extension is a subject in its own right. There's no reason not to have an article on it. SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 20:01, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
Oppose. I agree that life extension is a subject in its own right. --Ben Best (talk) 23:50, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
Oppose Life-extension is not necessarily anti-aging. E.g. cryonics is intended to be LE, but not AA per se. --Michael C. Price ^talk 22:33, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
Oppose per Slimvirgin MaxPont (talk) 18:55, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
Oppose Keep this article the way it is. No need at all for a merge. MichaelKovich (talk) 08:31, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Major Copy Edit as per Request

Recently completed, as per tag and request on WP:HEALTH. --Whoosit (talk) 10:53, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Years of healthy life

Much of the 'anti-aging' material I see is related to increasing the number of healthy years rather than just the years of life. The article could mention that in the interest of balance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.173.6.133 (talk) 23:45, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Cosmetics and surgery

I have removed the "Cosmetics and surgery" section at 3:12 AM EST on 12/14/2010.

This article is on life extension, not methods to mask the effects of aging. In addition, the section provided no information and was therefore incredibly weak and working only to erode the quality of this article.

MichaelKovich (talk) 08:15, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Regeneration ?

Perhaps that Regeneration_(biology) needs to be mentioned here; significant progress is being made that can be used for human therapy aswell (ie http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4888080.stm , Axolotl Perhaps that by adding regeneration by genetic modification, the ageing progress too can be stopped 81.242.234.114 (talk) 11:11, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Also, mention the progress by Howard Chang, http://www.entrepreneur.com/tradejournals/article/202253483.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.242.234.114 (talk) 11:14, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Implied and unfair bias against SENS

The "combination strategies" section, which is essentially about the Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence, implies uniform negative opinion as to the credibility of SENS. In reality the criticisms cited are from six years ago, and SENS has received the endorsement of respected scientists in the fields of aging biology and regenerative medicine. This oversight would appear to demonstrate some bias on behalf of the author, and it should be corrected. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Correctingthis (talk • contribs) 22:11, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Do you have reliable sources for these endorsements? Huon (talk) 00:08, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for responding. Yes, the Advisory Board for the SENS Foundation, which includes a number of heads of department and other reputable scientists, is a good start. As for that matter is their joint statement of principles, which states: "As and when it is developed, this panel of therapies may provide many years, even decades, of additional youthful life to countless millions of people. Those extra years will be free of all age-related diseases, as well as the frailty and susceptibility to infections and falls that the elderly also experience. The alleviation of suffering that will result, and the resulting economic benefits of maintained productivity of the population, are almost incalculable."

The full statement and list of signatories can be viewed at http://sens.org/sens-research/advisory-board. Correctingthis (talk) 06:26, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Per our policy on self-published sources: "Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason self-published media [...] are largely not acceptable." The SENS website is certainly such a self-published source and thus is not reliable by Wikipedia's standards. Huon (talk) 15:16, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

I understand why this would be the policy, but think this would be a rare instance when self published material would be accepted. The SENS Foundation's Advisory Board consists of some of the most reputable names in regenerative medicine and they have endorsed the SENS proposals explicitly. To not acknowledge this support merely because it is documented on the Foundation's website is, in my opinion, to extend Wikpedia's policy on self publishing beyond it's intended purpose and to the detriment of the facts. To do so while incorporating comments which depict SENS as pseudoscience (while citing frankly far less reputable sources than the membership of the SENSF advisory board) is a misrepresentation of opinion within the relevant scientific community. For example, to suggest that someone like Anthony Atala, who is world renowned and at the absolute forefront of tissue engineering, could be perceived as anything other than an expert is demonstrably false. If it will help at all, the support and co-signing of the statement of principles is also referenced independently of the SENS website here: http://www.metanexus.net/magazine/tabid/68/id/10688/Default.aspx I think it's important that the Wikipedia entry reflect the reality. Correctingthis (talk) 21:28, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Those comments which depict SENS as pseudoscience were published in peer-reviewed journals. Academic sources such as peer-reviewed journals are considered among the most reliable we have. The Metanexus article, on the other hand, is written by Aubrey de Grey himself, hardly independent of SENS and not peer-reviewed. I would greatly prefer some secondary sources to base such an assesment on. For all I can tell, most of the members of the Research Advisory Board don't mention SENS at all on their own websites, and I can't judge the degree of endorsement inherent in membership in this board. Huon (talk) 22:09, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Honestly the situation in the community is a bit more complexe. It is true that the gerontology community is largely very sceptical towards the concepts (and consequences) proposed by de Grey. His collaborators are mostly from the biotech community (as opposed to academic gerontologists who tend to be in the demographics field) and do not deal with aging as a complexe phenomenon but individual aspects of his concepts. Hence the articles linked here as sources do not detail the individual aspects of the SENS-agenda. There was another publication from Estap et al which tried to do exatcly this and should be better used as a source than the Holliday essay - which btw was explicitely part of the opinion section of Biogerontology instead of the "offical" section. Estap et al were critical, yes, but cetainly were far from calling it pseudosicence. Hope this helps. Oh and I am not user Correctingthis 87.177.247.57 (talk) 01:32, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

See, for example, this commentary in Science Translational Medicine ("The Demographic and Biomedical Case for Late-Life Interventions in Aging"). The authors include respected scientists such as the late Robert Butler, who was the first director of the National Institute on Aging. Note that the article calls explicitly for developing "a more broadly conceived regenerative medicine, to embrace the repair, removal, or replacement of existing aging damage or its decoupling from its pathological sequelae" (p.2) - that is, the SENS approach. All told, the repair approach has gained substantial traction in the last 5 years, and is increasingly accepted as an legitimate endeavor in the bio-gerontological community. PolarCanuck 12:50 (PST), 14 April 2011 — Preceding unsigned comment added by PolarCanuck (talk • contribs)

Yes, but even this commentary, which is not the type of secondary source Huon is looking for, does not mention SENS. In your opinion, it supports SENS, but there is nothing explicit here. It's impossible to cite this as support for SENS without original research. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 21:07, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, it was co-authored with Aubrey de Grey, who invented SENS, so it's hard not to see this as an endorsement... I see what you mean, but this is not entirely fair in the sense that scientists who adopt the ideas underpinning SENS will not necessarily publish pieces praising the foundation or the specific acronym itself, but will rather publish pieces of SENS-related research, while those who are trying to marginalize it will specifically criticize de Grey and his organization by name. I.e., once something becomes mainstream, you won't find explicit pronouncements about how it's mainstream. People will just engage with the specific ideas. Hard to see how we can come up with the citation you seem to require at this point. Perhaps once there is social-science work on the history of this area of science, but that won't happen any time soon, and in the meantime, the claim that the scientific community uniformly views SENS as a wacky endeavor is simply incorrect. PolarCanuck 16:09 (PST), April 14, 2011 — Preceding unsigned comment added by PolarCanuck (talk • contribs)

That paragraph really isn't a good place for arguments about SENS, because it's just a single paragraph. The proper place is over on the main SENS article, Strategies_for_Engineered_Negligible_Senescence, where we can go into detail. The paragraph should just briefly describe the concept of what SENS is, and leave the reader to click on the link if he/she cares. Marainein (talk) 09:01, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

At least the term "pseudoscience" should be replaced, as it is taken out of an non-peer reviewed essay. It is very suggestive and clearly POV, as intended by the opinions section of Biogerontology. Otherwise it should be marked as "In the opinion of Holliday it is pseudoscience" - it would be better though to use something like that "the community was very critical about the viability of the concept" and replace the source with the offical peer-reviewed paper of Estap et al 87.186.112.127 (talk) 11:44, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

If we're only going to quote a single source for this, it needs to be the most neutral source we can find. The Technology Review debate would be best, as it had qualified advocates for both sides, a formal reply and counter reply structure, and a panel of neutral judges to evaluate the arguments. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Marainein (talk • contribs) 23:29, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

This is certainly a very difficult issue. Anyone who is active in the medical research community knows how SENS is viewed in that community. Yet their colleagues don't spend much of their time writing reviews about it, just as they don't spend much time writing about radiation hormesis and similar topics. (Just to clarify: I'm not saying that SENS = radiation hormesis, or that one or the other is without any merit; it's just that they're both somewhat outside of what most people are thinking about right now.) So we get into a situation where there's a paucity of reliable sources representing the consensus view. On the other hand, we have a good number of individuals who are very enthusiastic about SENS and the potential benefits of the strategy. And for good reason: who doesn't want to live a longer, healthier life, or make money helping others live a longer, healthier life? So the enthusiasm generates its own buzz and coverage.

As encyclopaedia writers, how do we cover this situation, which for now is really much more of a sociological phenomenon than a scientific one? Especially as most of the coverage is driven by and written by enthusiasts themselves? I'm not sure what the answer is, just that it's not going to come from arguing about the founder's degree or whether article one or article two should be cited. I suspect that, as always, only time will guide us. Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 23:47, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, first we should use our offical wikipedia guidelines to make the best out of the situation at hand as often. Its not the most extensively discussed field in biotech/medicine, true, but this does not free us from applying common standards. The first rule being arguably a NPOV in writing articles and presenting topics. For this matter it likely does play a role what kind of sources are considered appropiate, meaning especially published, peer reviewed papers. Currently we are using an essay from the "oppinions" section of Biogerontology which is by nature not the best source for NPOV and especially is not part of the official peer reviewed section of the journal. The topic itself is obviously controversial and the wiki article should reflect that. This can be achieved with the critical paper from Estap et al (which as of my knowledge was kind of acknowledged by the community as the "offical" mainstream position by that time). In terms of wikipedia standards the Holliday essay in comparison is simply not a good source. If you see this differently I would like to know how this fits with our guidelines. Also I have to take your classification of the topic as non-scientific as your personal opinion - the whole point of the discussion was exactly that the Holliday essay is not the kind of source Wikipedia usually relies on to conclude about topics. 87.186.102.69 (talk) 02:40, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

The lack of coverage is exactly why the subject is so difficult. I don't want to say SENS is fringe, but it's not within the borders of what your average scientists are doing today. Think about it this way: if I publish a series of books and essays arguing that eating bananas exclusively will increase your lifespan two-fold, and I get enough publicity for my theory to merit creation of a Wikipedia article, how do we cover this from the perspective of science? Perhaps my theory will one day be verified, but until it becomes a subject of considerable research in the scientific community, we can't expect a mountain of reviews on it. If one aging expert writes an opinion piece dismissing my efforts as pseudoscience, that should be mentioned in the article. To get back to the real world, we can't automatically disregard the Holliday essay out of hand unless we can show that Holliday is a figure of no importance in the field. If he is an authority, his opinions, peer reviewed or not, as presented in a secondary source appearing in a respected scientific journal, can certainly be given some weight here. We should use both sources. Does this make sense? Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 21:44, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

In principle I see what you mean, however, the devil is in the details. The point raised was that as it stands now it could appear as undue due to choosing the Holliday opinion as the central source of information. To restate: I agree that the topic is controversial, but giving the uncommented statement of "pseudoscience" is slightly off limits. It is one of the outmost opinions raised in the SENS-debate so far and not universally shared in the community. One could as well have cited Michael R. Rose or Caleb Fitch (who is an authority on equal level as Holliday). Caleb actually wrote a peer reviewed paper published in Gerontology (a journal with even higher impact factor) quite favourably commenting on the issue http://content.karger.com/produktedb/produkte.asp?typ=pdf&file=000215589. Rose also did several of such pieces, though published less prominently. I don't want to claim that Caleb's position is the unanimous position of the community as he leans towards the other end, though not as extreme as Holliday (for that, one would have to quote one of de Grey's affiliates). Therefore I guess the Estap et al review is more than appropiate, written by several authorities in the field and voicing the serious doubts of the community without resorting to extreme positions and certainly not at the positive end. This would resolve the issue IMO. If Holliday is to be included it has to be made clear that it is his personal opinion and not representative for the research community as a whole.

In an unrelated note: I am sligthly uncomfortable to post under random IP numbers. I am regularly posting with my real Wiki-Account in the german language project. Is it somehow possible to edit here using that account? 87.186.99.187 (talk) 23:22, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Can you please clarify which article you mean when you say 'Estap et al review' Marainein (talk) 05:50, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Also the title for this section ('Theoretical combination strategies') is uninformative.'Theoretical' applies to pretty much everything on this page and 'combination' could include a lot of things. Something like 'Repair Strategies' or 'Repair and Maintenance Approach' would be more accurate. Marainein (talk) 06:45, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

I've got not much time for Wiki before thursday and will reply then. If you think that the title should be changed you should try to prove that the change will reflect the position more or less accepted by the research community, preferably providing good sources - if the name is not referred to as such in public discussions its hard to argue in favour of it. And please avoid stuff de Grey published in his own Journal or website, those are not considered unbiased sources (for good reason). 87.186.112.126 (talk) 00:02, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

By that standard the current title 'Theoretical combination strategies' fares very poorly - I can't find it referred to anywhere in any scientific literature, and a search on google only finds this wikipedia article and a whole lot of sites that have copied from this article. Improvement is needed.

I've dug through the literature and everyone just seems to call it SENS or Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence. Given that SENS is the only thing in that section, why not just call it that? I'll wait a few days to let other people add their views.

(some of the) references that refer to SENS as SENS:

Warner, H.; Anderson, J.; Austad, S.; Bergamini, E.; Bredesen, D.; Butler, R.; Carnes, A.; Clark, F. et al. (Nov 2005). "Science fact and the SENS agenda. What can we reasonably expect from ageing research?" EMBO reports 6 (11): 1006–1008.

Estep et al, 'Life Extension Pseudoscience and the SENS Plan' www.technologyreview.com/sens/docs/estepetal.pdf

Jan Vijg, 'Aging of the Genome', 2007, pg 294

Caleb E. Finch and Steven N. Austad, 'Blind cave salamanders age very slowly: A new member of Methuselah’s Bestiary' Bioessays 33: 27–29, 2010

Hass, R, 'Rejuvenation in distinct cell populations – What does it mean?' Experimental Gerontology, Volume 44, Issue 10, October 2009, Pages 634-638

Marainein (talk) 12:30, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Missed this conversation because OP put it at the top of the page, rather than at the bottom, where new threads should start. There is no consensus here. Don't change the section head. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 07:12, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

If you've got objections, please state them. Marainein (talk) 07:46, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

See WP:BRD and WP:3RR. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 22:55, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Discuss: see WP:SPAM, WP:Undue, WP:CONSENSUS. This is SPAM. It gives undue weight to something that is well, unscientific. And you have no consensus to spam. Remember, 3RR. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 22:58, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

How does changing the section title qualify as spam? The section is clearly about SENS, and there's already a link directly under the title to Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence Marainein (talk) 01:36, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

new section needs cites & work: Life_extension#List of life extension funding, research, and advocacy organizations

Entries with wikilinks should be moved into the Life Extension template. One mention per page is enough.

Entries without wikilinks should be cited or removed.Lentower (talk) 13:41, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Contested deletion

This page should not be speedy deleted because... --Gertie1999 (talk) 21:35, 18 May 2011 (UTC)There is no such thing as life extension

There is, in mice. The article is rather explicit in pointing out which of those proposed techniques are technically feasible, what the scientific community thinks of these proposals, etc. But just the non-existence of these life extension techniques is no reason not to have an article on the various proposals; compare space elevator or Dyson sphere. Huon (talk) 21:46, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Aging as a Disease

Aging as a Disease is being proposed to be edited to bring the information up to date to the year 2011.

The following changes are proposed to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_extension

In 2009, Pramod Vora read two landmark papers at the [Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine (A4M)] Conferences in Orlando, Florida and San Jose, California respectively, citing numerous case studies done over a ten year period. Scientific evidence showing aging as a pathologically detectable and reversible disease was presented, by showing before and after pathology of various organs in the human body. Since pathology is used in mainstream medicine to detect a disease, this pioneering research has helped to further the cause to establish Anti-Aging Medicine as a valid medical science.[19][20]

References: 1. ^ Illingworth, Cynthia M. 1974. Trapped fingers and amputated fingertips in children. J. Ped. Surgery 9:853-858. 2. ^ Becker RO. The Body Electric: Electromagnetism and the Foundation of Life. New York, NY: William Morrow & Company; 1985. 3. ^ Becker RO, Flick AB, Becker AJ. Iontopheretic system for stimulation of tissue healing and regeneration. United States Patent 5814094. 1996, March 28. 4. ^ Babcock MJ. Methods for measuring fingernail growth rates in nutritional studies. J Nutr. 1955;55:323-336. 5. ^ "Regeneration recipe: Pinch of pig, cell of lizard". Associated Press. MSNBC. February 19, 2007. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17171083/. Retrieved October 24, 2008. 6. ^ Goldacre, Ben (May 3, 2008). "The missing finger that never was". The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/may/03/medicalresearch.health. 7. ^ Vora, Pramod. Fingertip Regrowth, Anti-aging Medical Therapeutics, Volume 13, Spring 2010 8. ^ Vora, Pramod. Fingertip Regeneration, Anti-aging Medical Therapeutics, Volume 14, spring 2011. 9. ^ Tuch BE (2006). "Stem cells—a clinical update". Australian Family Physician 35 (9): 719–21. PMID 16969445. 10. ^ Becker AJ, McCulloch EA, Till JE (1963). "Cytological demonstration of the clonal nature of spleen colonies derived from transplanted mouse marrow cells". Nature 197 (4866): 452–4. doi:10.1038/197452a0. PMID 13970094. 11. ^ Siminovitch L, McCulloch EA, Till JE (1963). "The distribution of colony-forming cells among spleen colonies". Journal of Cellular and Comparative Physiology 62 (3): 327–36. doi:10.1002/jcp.1030620313. PMID 14086156. 12. ^ Becker RO. The Body Electric: Electromagnetism and the Foundation of Life. New York, NY: William Morrow & Company; 1985. 13. ^ Becker RO. Effects of electrically generated silver ions on human cells and wound healing. Electro and Magnetobiology. 2000;19:1-19. 14. ^ Becker RO. Induced dedifferentiation: a possible alternative to embryonic stem cell transplants. NeuroRehabilitation. 2002;17:23-31. 15. ^ Becker RO, Flick AB, Becker AJ. Iontopheretic system for stimulation of tissue healing and regeneration. United States Patent 5814094. 1996, March 28. 16. ^ Vora, Pramod. Nano Silver Induced Stem Cell Activation Therapy, Anti-aging Medical Therapeutics, Volume 13, spring 2010. 17. ^ Vora, Pramod. Fingertip Regeneration, Anti-aging Medical Therapeutics, Volume 14, spring 2011. 18. ^ Babcock MJ. Methods for measuring fingernail growth rates in nutritional studies. J Nutr. 1955;55:323-336.

The discussion so far:

Dear Editor, There appears to be Conflict of Interest in the submissions that I made to edit the following pages. I am therefore happy to provide drafts of the changes proposed for an Editorial Review of the matter. It is unfortunate, that I also happen to be the person who has authored these research papers. But they have been peer reviewed and accepted by A4M the world's largest organization in Anti-Aging and Regenerative Medicine, and published in their numerous volumes during the past few years. This should not make the information I am providing as "speculative" any more and anybody qualified in this subject who reads these papers should see merit in the work being done in this field. Attempt is being made to make this information public for the advancement of science and mankind. I have re-edited the information provided earlier to make it shorter and have removed any repetitions of information and kept it as neutral as I possibly could. Further help is sought to make it meet Wikipedia's guidelines and expectations. Thank you for your time, patience and assistance. Your help in finalizing the edit for this page will be very highly appreciated. Once again thanking you for your assistance. Blessings, Pramod Vora Pramod Vora (talk) 23:08, 8 August 2011 (UTC) A few comments: 1. I could find no indication that Anti-Aging Medical Therapeutics is peer-reviewed. It does not have an Eigenfactor ranking. It is unknown to PubMed. The Library of Congress has some issues (with vol. 8 the newest I could find), and the LoC does not classify it as a journal. It apparently does not even have a website. To be honest, I doubt it is a reliable source at all, and since it seems almost impossible to find a copy of the newer issues, it also seems to fail our policy on verifiability as well. If you really can speed up wound healing five-fold, I suggest publishing in the New England Journal of Medicine instead. 2. Your interpretation of Becker's results seems a lot more confident than Becker's own. I tried to look up his results on dedifferentiation, and the most I could find was this 2002 paper which says that observed effects were achieved "apparently by stimulating dedifferentiation of mature human cells." That's very vague if Becker is supposed to have demonstrated the first artificial dedifferentiation in his laboratory as early as 1966. Almost fourty years later he's still at the "apparently" stage? I also failed to find any independent recognition of this effect that is supposed to be known for decades. 3. The Illingsworth paragraph you suggest for limb regeneration is redundant to the paragraph we already have. In summary, your suggested edits seem to one-sidedly promote your own achievements despite a lack of supporting sources in the scientific literature. Becker is the best you have (and unfortunately I don't have access to Becker's book), but you stretch his results beyond recognition. Huon (talk) 01:28, 9 August 2011 (UTC) Dear Huon, Anti-Aging Medical Therapeutics is not a journal but is released by A4M as a Medical Textbook Series. I said that my paper is peer reviewed by A4M. Wikipedia recognizes the existence of the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Academy_of_Anti-Aging_Medicine) and has a whole page devoted to it. I am happy to note that the Library of Congress has volume 8 with it. It would be best to contact A4M at http://www.worldhealth.net to verify that it is a reliable source and to verify the existence of later volumes and that they have indeed peer reviewed and accepted my papers for publication in Volume 12, 13 and 14. Here is a short note on the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine: "A4M is a non-for-profit medical society dedicated to the advancement of technology to detect, prevent, and treat aging related diseases and to promote research into methods to retard and optimize the human aging process and to prevent and treat aging related disorders. A4M is also dedicated to educating physicians, scientists and members of the public on issues of advanced preventive medicine and cutting edge biotechnologies. A4M, is now over 24,000 members strong in 105 nations. A4M has trained over 100,000 physicians at International Scientific Conferences over the past 15 years. A4M provides ongoing medical and scientific education and information services to over 500,000 healthcare professionals monthly via our on-line educational programs." I hope this information helps to establish the authenticity of The American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine and to peer review scientific papers. I will write a separate e-mail to Dr. Ron Klatz, M.D., President, A4M to also contact you with other relevant information to help you establish the authenticity of A4M and the good work they are doing. For more information on the late Dr. Robert O. Becker's research work please visit the following links to his published research papers and patent on my website: http://www.space-age.com/stemcell.html I will be happy to scan the relevant part of his book published in 1985 where he shows the first artificial dedifferentiation in summer of 1966 at the State University of New York, Syracuse, New York. Dedifferentiation is also talked about in his research papers whose references are already given by me. The pdf files of all these research papers and patents are available for download from my above mentioned webpage. The concept of our research work was created by Dr. Becker about 40 years back. We just carried it forward through the next 5 generations of development and put it to practical use in hospitals. The progressive photos taken are by Plastic Surgeons who are members of ISAPS and IAAPS. So the work is authenticated by other Doctors and Hospitals. Dr. Becker filed a United States Patent showing regeneration of adult fingertip way back in 1995. This patent is on my website and you can see fingertip regeneration. Yet Wikipedia page writes that the first adult fingertip regeneration was done in August 2005.(August 2005, Lee Spievack). I have also tried to correct this. You can download this patent from my website given above for your study. We also have a exclusive page on children and adult Fingertip regeneration cases done during the last few years. You can see progressive pictures taken by other Doctors who are now implementing this technology in respectable hospitals. So you see it is not my work I am promoting. I am just collecting the information form other Doctors and propagating it. The names of these doctors are mentioned under each set of photographs. Nor are we providing you stories from the media as are sometimes reported in Wikipedia. I do not understand how the media can be a source of information for an encyclopedia. Published research, duly peer reviewed, and read at scientific conferences, in my opinion, is any day a better source of information. Please study the work of the late Dr, Robert Becker and please give him the credit he richly deserves. Let me know if there is anything more I can do to help you decide if this knowledge should be made public for the benefit of mankind or should be lost into oblivion as has been the case with Dr. Rober O. Becker. Blessings, Pramod Vora Pramod Vora (talk) 07:30, 9 August 2011 (UTC) While we do have an article on the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine, that is not much of an achievement. We also have an article on the Flat Earth Society without claiming their scientific theories have any merit. And our A4M article mentions massive criticism of the organization by practically everybody not a member, including Aubrey de Grey who is himself a proponent of anti-aging medicine. If everybody from mainstream medical researchers to other anti-aging proponents has such a low opinion of A4M, they are hardly a reliable source. Furthermore, have a look at this comment about another of their publications, by Leonard Hayflick of UCSF: The International Journal of Anti-Aging Medicine is not a recognized scientific journal. What I find reprehensible about this 'journal' is that advertisers who publish in it can then claim there is scientific evidence to support their outrageous assertions by pointing to the publication in an alleged scientific journal. This is just one of the scathing assessments IJAAM received from the scientific community. Given that A4M still claimed it was a peer-reviewed journal, I don't think we can accept A4M's word on whether Anti-Aging Medical Therapeutics is peer-reviewed. Is there any such indication independent of A4M? I have looked a little deeper into Becker's work. The most relevant patent seems to be this one, not the one you mentioned above. Here Becker explains the dedifferentiating properties of silver. There are several caveats. First of all, a patent application is not peer-reviewed. Secondly, Becker says: "The foregoing results mean to me that the electrically generated silver ion produces a transformation of tissue fibroblasts into relatively primitive cells resembling and possibly functioning like primitive cell types, e.g., hematopoietic marrow." He is extremely cautious, with formulations such as "mean to me" and "resembling and possibly functioning". If that were a research paper and not a patent application, I'd say he outlines a program for further research to confirm what he suspects. Has such additional research been carried out? I couldn't find any indication beyond the article I mentioned before, which was still in the "apparently" stage. Finally, despite renewed efforts I still found no indication that anybody else took up and confirmed Becker's work, which is rather surprising given its potential importance. Until such confirmation is available, I don't think we should emphasize Becker's work, and definitely not beyond what Becker himself says about his own level of success. As an aside, you may want to discuss your suggested changes at the corresponding articles' talk pages: Talk:Life extension, Talk:Regeneration (biology) and Talk:Stem cell. That would probably allow more interested editors than just me to see them and comment on them. Huon (talk) 15:06, 9 August 2011 (UTC) Dear Huon, Here are some after thoughts to my submissions last night. In order to truly appreciate the work done by the late Dr. Robert O. Becker, M.D. we must understand the following: Becker was perhaps 50 years ahead of his time. This did create a lot of problems in his career. If you happen to get your hands on his Book The Body Electric you will see it is a beautiful manuscript on Limb Regeneration. Unfortunately in 1960s, talking about limb regeneration was a “suicide mission.” People in the scientific community were not ready for it. Yet Becker pursued with his dream. Scientist did not believe mature cell could be dedifferentiated back to their embryonic state. There was strong opposition to this in the scientific community. So obviously, Robert Becker had to be very conservative in what he spoke out openly as he still wanted the scientific community to support his research. This can perhaps explain the word “apparently” on which you have laid stress in your earlier comments. Though we all know we live in a freedom of speech society, we are all subjected to only cautious speech and arbitration of speech based on what the scientific community thinks is reasonable. The choice with the researcher is to downgrade his speech and writings or not get published at all. This is the due process of peer reviewing. They tell you what to write and what they (who perhaps do not know enough about the subject) think is reasonable or not. These problems have plagued the late Dr. Becker’s career all along. I see it happening to me all the time and I have to be cautious in what I say, do and write. I am sure that Dr. Becker himself did not have the vision to see that he was the “grandfather” of stem cell work in the world and in the United States in particular. We learn to appreciate his work today when there is so much talk about Stem Cell Therapy, Regenerative Medicine and Limb Regeneration in particular. This is no longer a taboo subject of the 1960s and many prestigious universities in the United States are pursuing Limb Regeneration and the Department of Defense has provided millions of dollars in research grants for Limb Regeneration work, as it will one day help soldiers returning back from war to come back without permanent loss of limbs. Finger Regeneration is just the beginning. Just 400 hundred years back Galileo (1609) was imprisoned for life for saying that the Earth was not the center of the universe and that the Earth was just a planet revolving around the Sun. I trust the above insight will help you to take the right decisions. Blessings, Pramod VoraPramod Vora (talk) 20:00, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Dear Huon, Thank you for pointing out the earlier patent No. 4528265 filed by the late Dr. Robert Becker in May 1982 and granted in July 1985. You can see he had to struggle for more than 3 years to get it through. They also have a team of people who scrutinize the patents filed and you have to go back and forth to explain your point of view and justification for a grant of a patent. All true scientists undergo a learning curve in their life. It only towards the end of their life that they know more about the truth, as it really exists in the universe, and have the courage to speak the truth as they have not too many more years to live. The patent I have talked about 5814094 is filed in March 1996 and granted in September 1998. This is 14 years later when Dr. Becker was much closer to the truth and also much bolder in speaking the truth. See 14 years later he did not have to struggle for 3 whole years to get a patent. The world was more ready for this information and the barriers were gradually being broken down. This later patent shows progressive pictures of the world’s first documented adult Fingertip Regeneration done in 1995 with silver ions. We must rely on what he has to say in 1995 and in his other recent research papers published as late as 2000 and 2002 (whose links are on my website) to know what he knew and wanted to say towards the end of his life. Incidentally, he passed away in 2008 at the age of 84 years. There is always criticism of all great organizations who step away from the conventional ways of the world and start something that is hard to digest in that particular time period they live in. I mentioned about the life of Galileo in my last correspondence. Again, every great organization also goes through a learning curve and may make some preliminary mistakes. What is important is to make sure that they have the right ethics and the right attitude / goals to do what is right for mankind. United States also undergoes a lot of criticism all over the world for what they do and don’t do. Does that make Untied States a bad country? People and organizations who do something extraordinary in life are always criticized. They have to learn to accept it. If you do not want criticism you should do nothing at all and nobody will look at you or pay any attention. Let us leave the controversy surrounding A4M on Wikipedia out of this discussion as we are not really wanting to modify their page. Let us focus on the scientific information given on the 3 pages we chose to edit and bring the information up to date to the year 2011. Also would the visitors to these 3 pages on Wikipedia appreciate this information and find it valuable in their understanding of science today? Trust this dialogue will help you to do what is right for mankind. Blessings, Pramod Vora Pramod Vora (talk) 20:50, 9 August 2011 (UTC) The reason for putting all this up on the talk page is a follow up to the suggestion of user Huon (talk) who recommended that I put up these proposed changes on the Talk page to allow other more interested editors to also offer their valuable comments and help to quickly reach a consensus on editing this page. The sole object of reproducing this previous discussion is to provide easy access to information on other research work done in the past so that other readers / editors are given the opportunity to quickly assess the merits of the proposed changes to bring this proposed edit to a final conclusion. An attempt is being made to bring the information on Wikipedia pages up to date for the benefit and progress of science and mankind in general.

Blessings, Pramod VoraPramod Vora (talk) 18:26, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Since Pramod Vora copied only his part of the discussion from his User page, let me repeat my stance here. I do not believe the paragraph above is a meaningful addition to the article. Firstly, there is an obvious conflict of interest because Pramod Vora wants to add his own research. Secondly, the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine is an organisation with a rather awful reputation; compare the article for highly critical comments by other scientists, including Aubrey de Grey who is himself a life extension proponent and thus shares A4M's philosophical position - but he still says A4M publishes pseudoscience. Papers read at an A4M conference are not reliable sources for Wikipedia's purposes. If those papers really were such landmarks, why weren't they published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal? Finally, I also find the idea that it is possible to pathologically diagnose aging rather unsurprising. The age of unidentified persons is routinely estimated with a rather high level of precision for identification purposes (usually bodies, rarely living persons). While that may technically not be considered "pathology", I doubt Pramod Vora's methods were unknown to coroners. That aging is reversible is another matter, of course, but that claim would require much better sources. Huon (talk) 22:39, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

My dear Huon,

I thought you recommended me not to carry on the discussion any further but to let other interested editors voice their opinion by posting it on the discussion page.

I just wanted to clarify that I have verbatim copied the entire discussion from my user page and did not leave a single line out. You can cross check if you still have any doubt.

You have confused finding out the age of a dead body with detection of aging. The purpose of using pathology to detect aging in a living person is not to find out the age of a person. The purpose of Anti-Aging Medicine is to reverse the pathologically detected parameters of aging. This is amply explained in my referenced papers. This is not common knowledge in a coroner’s office. The work I am referring to is landmark research. I am sure other editors will bear me out. If anybody can correct the pathology of aging, I would like to read their research supported by case studies done over a ten year period.

I also requested you to keep A4M’s reputation out of the discussion as there is no legal foundation to it and it is only hearsay – one person’s opinion against an organization. It has not been proved in a Court of Law if I understand correctly.

Here, we are trying to discuss science and not the “criticism” of an organization. Let us not get carried away from our main goal. Incidentally, I am not a member of A4M and have nothing to say for or against this organization.

Please give this discussion some rest and please let us follow your suggestion to allow other interested and qualified editors to voice their opinions.

I trust you will take this in the right spirit for allowing progress for science in the service of humanity.

I am trying to step out of this discussion, since you say I am a concerned person.

Let others decided and I will abide by their decision.

Blessings, Pramod VoraPramod Vora (talk) 19:04, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Nanotechnology paragraph needs to reference Drexler

Currently the short entry reads 'Nanotechnology: Future advances in nanomedicine could give rise to life extension through the repair of many processes thought to be responsible for aging. Raymond Kurzweil, a futurist and transhumanist, believes that advanced medical nanorobotics could completely remedy the effects of aging by 2030.'

I am putting up a sentence preceding the second sentence on Drexler. For example, 'Eric Drexler, one of the founders of nanotechnology, postulated cell repair machines, including ones operating within cells and utilizing as yet hypothetical molecular computers, in his 1986 book Engines of Creation.'

It is in Chapter 7 of Engines of Creation http://anderson_mc.sites.uol.com.br/EOC_Chapter_7.html#section03of08 [note there is a recently updated version of the book, Engines of Creation 2.0']. See also Cryonics, December 1985 & January 1986 'MOLECULAR TECHNOLOGY AND CELL REPAIR MACHINES' by Drexler http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/moleculartechnologycellrepairmachines.html

While nanobots the size of cells may well be feasible before cell repair machines (which are based on hypothetical rod logic molecular computers) I would also note nanobots were conceptualized by others than Drexler before Kurzweil. Kurzweil has a high profile at the moment because of his work popularizing futurological matters regarding Artificial Intelligence and the 'Singularity'.

Drexler has a page on him in Wikipedia. Star A Star (talk) 07:58, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

SENS reversion

Ben Best posted on my talk page:

How much have you studied SENS, Huon? What do you know about the science behind it? What is your science background? What do you believe is the cause of aging, and why do you believe that those mechanisms cannot be repaired? The Holliday article that is cited as a reference for SENS-bashing is about "anti-aging", not specifically about SENS as far as I can see. All "anti-aging" is not equivalent to SENS --Ben Best 17:46, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

The Holliday article prominently mentions SENS and its proponent Aubrey de Grey as an example of the "extraordinarily ambitious" claims of the wider anti-aging movement, and says: de Grey (2006) lists “seven deadly things,” which need to be reversed to prevent senescence, backed up by just three references (all his own). Is this real or imagined science? There is not much doubt that it is the latter, and demonstrates unequivocably that there is very little understanding of the realities of aging and senescence. In fact, the proposals made are largely based on a combination of ignorance and wish-fulfillment. Our coverage seems rather generous to SENS. We shouldn't say that SENS has "withstood all scientific criticism" without a reliable secondary source. Regarding my science background, let's just say it's sufficient to actually read the sources, and it's also irrelevant because we need not (indeed, must not) provide our own research. Huon (talk) 18:22, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

OK, I acknowledge that all I could see of the Holliday article was the abstract, which does not mention de Grey or SENS. It is a long drive to a biomedical library for me, and I trust that what you say of the Holliday article is accurate. Nonetheless, Holliday is one man and one man's opinion does not make a scientific consensus. Even a small group of scientists do not make a scientific consensus. Holliday's opinion matches that of those who challenged SENS in the Technology Review controversy. The outcome of that challenge was not a victory for the challengers. The esteemed scientist and entrepreneur Craig Venter called it a draw. It is mistaken to claim that SENS is only recognized as being of scientific merit by de Grey. Dr. de Grey has held five scientific SENS conferences at Cambridge University, and I have attended them all. If you look at the presenters at SENS conferences, you will see that some of the best scientists in the world believe SENS has scientific merit:

http://sens.org/conferences/sens2/abstracts

http://sens.org/conferences/sens3/abstracts

http://sens.org/conferences/sens4/abstracts

http://sens.org/conferences/sens5/program

Controversy is common in science, and if you decide to take sides you should not impose your bias upon others. The great physicist Ludwig Boltzmann committed suicide partly because of the hostility from other scientists who vehemently opposed his kinetic theory of gases (based on atomic theory). There was fierce controversy in the 1930s over whether the brain conducts information electrically or chemically. And there is plenty of controversy in science today -- such as over the cause of Alzheimer's Disease. You will find eminent scientists on both sides of the sirtuin debate. By siding with those on one side of the SENS controversy you are imposing your POV on Wikipedia. --Ben Best 07:40, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm siding with the sources published in peer-reviewed journals. If you know of such sources supporting SENS (and not published by de Grey himself), please provide them. I could not find any indication that those SENS conferences were actually Cambridge University activities. A Google search for them on the university website turned up empty. Apparently the SENS Foundation just hired Queens' College as a conference venue without any endorsement by Cambridge University. Calling them "conferences at Cambridge University" seems misleading. Huon (talk) 13:51, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

I mentioned Cambridge University because that is where SENS conferences have been held. The key point is not the venue, but the quality of scientists who attend those conferences, nearly all of whom have published in peer-reviewed journals. The journal that Dr. de Grey edits, Rejuvenation Research, is a peer-reviewed journal. If Rejuvenation Research were not of this caliber, it would not be listed in PubMed. There are far more scientists who have attended and presented at SENS conferences than those who have attacked SENS in the TECHNOLOGY REVIEW criticisms or the EMBO REPORTS article cited (^[2], note that EMBO REPORTS also allowed Dr. de Grey to give his side of the story, honoring his scientific status^[3]). SENS is not pseudoscience and it is not just fantasy. Almost every one of the SENS proposed strategies has a team of scientists doing research on implementing them. As an example, one of my friends, Dr. John Schloendorn completed his PhD in biochemistry working on the LysoSENS project, and published a paper with 13 other scientists based on this research.^[4] John is now running a start-up company in Silicon Valley looking for stem cell treatments to boost the immune system. I know many others like him. I have not got the time or interest in continuing arguing you with in Wikipedia, but I think it is a shame that you insist on foisting the POV of one group of scientists rather than giving both sides of the story. Wikipedia is the worst for this one-sided presentation, and history will show you were an impediment. --Ben Best 19:47, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

What I insist on are reliable secondary sources. If there is such a widespread support for SENS, it should be easy to find such sources. Unfortunately I only have access to older issues of Rejuvenation Research and therefore cannot read Schloendorn's article, but the abstract does not mention SENS at all. Anyway, I seriously doubt the shape of this Wikipedia article will be an impediment to medical and biochemical research. Huon (talk) 20:43, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

The full text to the Holliday article is on the publisher's website, while the full text of Schloendorn's paper is available on the site of one of his co-authors. Regarding Holliday's article, while SENS is mentioned a couple of times, it's by no means the focus of the article. Holliday doesn't discuss what parts of SENS he thinks are going to fail, nor does he give any indication that he's read any of the details of SENS. Also note that the article is an opinion piece, so it's just one man's personal views. It's not one of the literature reviews that wikipedia science articles are meant to be built from. Marainein (talk) 13:04, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for finding those links. Schloendorn mentions SENS in the acknowledgements only: He works for the SENS Foundation. That's hardly a ringing endorsement. Huon (talk) 03:16, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I'd like to know your reasoning for keeping Holliday's article over the more neutral and much more scientifically detailed Technology Review debate, that Ben Best tried to replace it with. Marainein (talk) 12:43, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

References

^ Mykytyn, Courtney Everts (2006-02). "Anti-aging medicine: A patient/practitioner movement to redefine aging". Social Science & Medicine. 62 (3): 643–653. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2005.06.021. ISSN 0277-9536. Retrieved 2009-12-5. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)
^ . PMID 16264422 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1371037/. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Missing or empty |title= (help)
^ . PMID 16264420 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1371043/. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Missing or empty |title= (help)
^ . PMID 20041735. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Missing or empty |title= (help)

Average and maximum life spans

"The maximum life span for humans is currently estimated at approximately 120 years"

No citation. Jeanne Calment lived to a 122. Is there support for the 120 number somewhere? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.99.27.66 (talk) 13:32, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Please write up

In the section titled: Proposed strategies of life extension Cloning and body part replacement

Can someone write up (my writing skills arnt good enough so I hope someone else with better writing skills can do a write up) about the artifical windpipe of patient Claudia Castillo (2008) developed by Professor Macchiarini and Professor Alexander Seifalian. It was the first transplant of a semi-synthetic trachea organ. I believe it was a donor trachea (cleaned of original cells of the donor) which was then seeded by Claudia Castillo's DNA. It was considered the world's first tissue-engineered tracheal transplant.

I believe they more recently (2011) did an entire synthetic windpipe to a 36 year old man built with "scaffold" material and then seeded it with his DNA. Its consider truly the world's first totally synthetic organ transplant.

I think its significant enough to add to the section. They are important artificial organ technology breakthroughs.

Henry123ifa (talk) 04:22, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Tengion's "Neo Bladder" not mention. They are a cutting edge biotech company on organ replacement based outside of Philadelphia. Their research in organ replacment is cutting edge. In particular their biggest sucess up to date has been the development of an artificial grown bladder made from the patient's own cells called "Neo Bladder". I feel a write up for this would be good as well.

Henry123ifa (talk) 04:51, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

This is a general overview article. There are many specifics we do not mention, and we cannot mention them all. Has the "neo bladder" received widespread coverage in reliable secondary sources? Is it actually proposed as a method to increase human lifespans? Otherwise it's a neat medical advance, but irrelevant to this article's topic. Huon (talk) 12:09, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

List of life extension funding, research, and advocacy organizations

The "List of life extension funding, research, and advocacy organizations" section consisted of two types of entries: Three were already linked in the {{Life extension}} template and/or in the article proper, the other two seemed utterly non-notable and did not generate a single Google News hit. The section itself was entirely unsourced. Since we need neither the redundancy nor the non-notable companies, I have removed the entire section. Huon (talk) 09:13, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. It was just an examplefarm. --Ronz (talk) 16:14, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Remove quackery from history section?

Currently there are examples of quack medical treatments in a section headed "History of life extension and the life extension movement" that go back to 1889. Those practices did not extend human life, nor are they related to the life extension movement. If the consensus is that it is a related topic, we should move that information to a new section about ancient superstitions regarding immortality, while adding new material about Emperor Qin Shi Huang's quest for the elixir of life, alchemy, necromancy and the fountain of youth. I propose doing away with the "history" from the section and renaming that section to "Life extension movement." 188.103.56.47 (talk) 09:57, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, according to mainstream medical research, much of the current life extension movement still relies on quackery; thus it's not a surprise that past attempts were also quackery. Anyway, a more thorough section on the history of attempts to prolong life, including the examples you mention (though I wasn't aware of the relevance of necromancy - I had thought that more of a divination technique), seems a good idea, preferably with some context instead of a loose collection of seemingly unrelated events. Surely there books on the history of the quest for a longer life we could use as sources? Splitting off a section on the current movement also sounds good to me. Huon (talk) 11:59, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

SENS summary

There's been some rewriting of the SENS information by removing information. I made very slight changes to retain all the information [4]. It's still a bit awkward. --Ronz (talk) 20:41, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Thank you Ronz, as your minor changes have made this brief section more readable. I have two additional issues with this section, however, that I wanted to raise. They are the following:

The second sentence in this section is "One such theoretical strategy proposes a cure for cancer, stem cell treatments, the addition of new enzymes to the human body, and moving mitochondrial DNA to the cellular nucleus." Although the sentence reads all right, this statement could do a better job trying to succinctly summarize the proposed strategy of SENS. According to the SENS website and de Grey's book, rejuvenation may be theoretically obtained by removing aging damage via the use of stem cells and tissue engineering, removal of telomere-lengthening machinery, allotopic expression of mitochondrial proteins, targeted ablation of cells, immunotherapeutic clearance, and novel lysosomal hydrolases. I feel that the current sentence should be replaced to make mention of these general strategies, as it would be a more reflective, yet still brief portrayal of SENS strategies.
The final statement in this section is "There is no scientific evidence that supports this strategy,[5] and has been called pseudoscientific because its proposed techniques are speculative." A couple issues with this. First, at no point does the author for the given source, Dr. Holliday, directly call SENS pseudoscientific or totally lacking in evidence. His use of the word pseudoscientific comes from the following quote, where he generally criticizes those who wish to achieve rejuvenation in the near future: "The views put about by those in the anti-aging movement are overbearingly arrogant, first, because they claim that they can be much more successful than the thousands of biomedical scientists who carry out research on age-associated diseases, and second, because they claim they can reverse millions of years of evolution in a very short space of time. Their predictions have little relationship to medicine and science. They are no more than a somewhat curious mixture of pseudo-science and wish-fulfillment." He only directly mentions SENS twice and, when he does so, he refers to the movement as "extraordinarily ambitious" or mentions that "the specific claims of SENS have previously been critically reviewed by a large group of biogerontologists." Given this, I feel that the final statement should be re-written to the following: "There is little scientific evidence supporting rejuvenative strategies and the goals of SENS have been called overly ambitious because its proposed techniques are largely speculative."Mostly Translucent (talk) 03:12, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

I object to "little evidence yet", which implies there is some evidence and that we might find more. The latter is entirely speculative and adds no information to the article. I mean, there's no evidence yet that the moon is made of green cheese, right? As to the former, I'm not aware of any evidence supporting SENS, and our source for that statement is rather explicit in claiming there is none, calling SENS "speculation based on wish fulfilment alone" as opposed to "speculation based on evidence". I'll revert that. Huon (talk) 16:48, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

You are correct that, while the proposed strategies of SENS are based to some extent on proven life extension therapies for model organisms, there is currently no evidence demonstrating that SENS can rejuvenate an aged animal. I concur with your edit and have no objections.Mostly Translucent (talk) 18:18, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

SENS isn't something you can buy in a bottle, so it can't be evaluated like it is a currently available therapy. It's a research proposal, and needs to be evaluated on how likely it is to yield useful results. And why is Holliday being used as a source of SENS criticism? He's got almost nothing to say about SENS, and doesn't seem to know anything about it (an important first step in criticism). His arguments are about anti-aging in general, and if they belong anywhere in this article, it's in a general criticisms section. Marainein (talk) 23:38, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree with you. Since Holliday's only relevant comment on SENS in his published article is that it is "overly ambitious" for claiming that rejuvenation is possible in the near future, it seems a bit silly to quote him in this brief, SENS sub-section. Also, mentioning that there is not currently any scientific evidence supporting SENS also seems a bit unnecessary, as this is quite obviously the case with any new, previously untested scientific theory. Ideally, I feel this section would just briefly summarize the general proposed strategy of SENS and get rid of the cited, cherry-picked commentary. This would be easily accomplished by removing the last sentence in this section.Mostly Translucent (talk) 01:42, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

That last sentence is a very mild version of the harsh criticism SENS has received. If "there's no evidence" is cherry-picked, we could cite the same source also for characterizing SENS as "speculation based on wish fulfilment alone". And while I don't have access to the full Holliday article right now, I just noticed that when I looked it up the last time, I cited it thus:

de Grey (2006) lists “seven deadly things,” which need to be reversed to prevent senescence, backed up by just three references (all his own). Is this real or imagined science? There is not much doubt that it is the latter, and demonstrates unequivocably that there is very little understanding of the realities of aging and senescence. In fact, the proposals made are largely based on a combination of ignorance and wish-fulfillment.

The "imagined science" remark was the basis of the "pseudoscience" claim that has now been removed. So Holliday has obviously read de Grey, he's competent to comment on his work, and this looks to me like an attempt to whitewash our SENS coverage. Furthermore, getting rid of the cited commentary is precisely the wrong way to go. Citing commentary is precisely how we should cover the reception SENS has received. Huon (talk) 02:35, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

I am in no way attempting to whitewash SENS coverage. I completely agree with you that SENS is controversial in the scientific community and has generated heat by aggressively advocating life extension and rejuvenation in the near future. Although we know an impressive amount about aging mechanisms and how to tweak them to boost longevity in model organisms, we are not at a point where we can seriously apply these therapies to humans. Whether or not we will reach that point in the near or distant future is not something I can predict with any confidence. I also do not doubt Holliday's competence, as he is a well known evolutionary biologist in the biological community. Regardless of what one makes of his opinion on this touchy issue, there is no doubt that he is a knowledgeable scientist and it is unfair to suggest otherwise. My primary point was that using Holliday's article, which is a general critique of those who claim that human life extension can be obtained in the near future, solely as commentary for the SENS section versus human life extension as a whole may be construed as biased. I won't argue with you further regarding the current state of this section, however, as you have already compromised with me and kindly made edits to address my original concerns.

Since this has been historically a point of contention, however, I just want to highlight a 2006 paper by Gray and Bürkle which describes SENS in a more neutral manner, finding some goals of SENS to be plausible and others, as Holliday would say, ambitious. My sole point in mentioning this is just to demonstrate that there is diversity in published commentary regarding SENS that is both positive and negative. The following are a few quotes that both directly describe SENS and are original quotes by the authors:

"There is nothing at all conventional about SENS (the concept or the meeting of the same name), and a greater purpose may be served by addressing the deepening controversy that SENS has generated, something a conventional meeting report would surely fail to capture."

"These strategies range from the seemingly plausible (the enzymatic or chemical removal of advanced glycation end products) to the wildly ambitious [the whole-body interdiction of lengthening of telomeres (WILT) strategy of eliminating telomerase and the alternative pathway of telomere lengthening from all mitotic cells as a means of precluding cancer cell proliferation]."

"The objective of eliminating insoluble cellular waste using a bioremediation approach is novel and may have merit in ameliorating the undesirable consequences of aging."

For those who are interested, the citation is the following: Gray DA, Bürkle A. SENS and the Polarization of Aging-Related Research. Sci Aging Knowl Environ 2006; 7(pe8).

Mostly Translucent (talk) 21:55, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Minimally, it appears that SENS proposals (they are nothing but proposals, correct?) are WP:FRINGE speculation. If so, they should be treated as such. --Ronz (talk) 23:28, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

A research proposal is not the same thing as fringe science. Wikipedia guidelines WP:FRINGE suggest that something is fringe science if it is "generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community" or contradicts well established scientific laws ("generally proposes changes in the basic laws of nature in order to allow some phenomenon..."). Neither of these things are true of SENS.

Regarding Holliday - from the quote Huon presented here he only seems to have a read a single, non-technical article on SENS. He says that "that there is very little understanding of the realities of aging and senescence In fact, the proposals made are largely based on a combination of ignorance and wish-fulfillment.". Now Holliday doesn't tell us what he thinks de Grey is ignorant of, or give us any sign at all that he knows any of the details of SENS, but he still has "not much doubt" that it is "imagined science". Because he doesn't know very much about about it, he's not a reliable source for this topic. I've seen other people make much more detailed and informed criticisms of SENS. Marainein (talk) 03:43, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

I suggest you re-read WP:FRINGE. Your summary is incorrect, and your focus on that part of FRINGE worries me. --Ronz (talk) 03:46, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps you could aid us by pointing out the relevant parts of WP:FRINGE and how they apply to SENS? And I'd very much appreciate knowing why my summary is incorrect, because I very much want to be correct. Marainein (talk) 06:32, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Quoting WP:FRINGE, with italics to emphasize most relevant portions: "A theory that is not broadly supported by scholarship in its field must not be given undue weight in an article about a mainstream idea, and reliable sources must be cited that affirm the relationship of the marginal idea to the mainstream idea in a serious and substantial manner."

"all majority and significant-minority views published in reliable sources should be represented fairly and proportionately."

"We use the term fringe theory in a very broad sense to describe ideas that depart significantly from the prevailing or mainstream view in its particular field. For example, fringe theories in science depart significantly from mainstream science and have little or no scientific support."

From the discussion here and what little I've read on the topic, it seems "3. Questionable science:" might not be too far off the mark. --Ronz (talk) 18:04, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

[Mykytyn-1] Mykytyn, Courtney Everts (2006-02). "Anti-aging medicine: A patient/practitioner movement to redefine aging". Social Science & Medicine. 62 (3): 643–653. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2005.06.021. ISSN 0277-9536. Retrieved 2009-12-5. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)

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