It might be possible to live thirty years longer. I wonder to what degree treating diabetes with metformin will also extend life? I also think that people confuse cause and effect between aging and many of the “diseases of aging.”
I think there’s potential for much more than that. I don’t buy the notion that the body can’t be repaired indefinitely. It violates no laws of physics.
[Afternoon update]
The mystery of the Missing Link has been solved once again!
Is there a link to be found somewhere?
Probably, but I lost it. Dang.
Yaaay, Rand found the missing link.
Metformin is hardly that wonderful. It’s used to decrease the amount of glucose in the blood but in large doses it can lead to liver toxicity and lactic acidosis. I’ve seen more than one person who had to leave it because of that and eventually ended up taking insulin. It’s harder to control insulin doses, plus its a lot more inconvenient to take it, but it has much less side effects.
I agree that all the auto-immune diseases, especially those which seem to be age related like Type 2 Diabetes, need to be better researched and treated to increase longevity. But I wouldn’t advise anyone with regular glucose levels to take metformin.
PS: I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s more to type 2 diabetes than it just being an age related auto-immune disease. At one point it was considered that stomach ulcers were ‘stress related’ until they found the link to helicobacter pylori. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some link between type 2 diabetes and some sort of pathogen. We already know that people can get viral pancreatitis.
Austad says the implications of living another 25 years could be immense.
“That will influence when we have kids, what kind of careers we have, and our second, third or fourth careers,” he said.
Faster, please! I could use another 25 years, just to see if my first career will ever kick in…