hal@finney.org wrote:
>
> But Hayflick's comments may have been meant more as a caution that
> progress against these specific diseases won't by itself change lifespan
> all that much. There is a good chance that we will be able to cure
> cancer, but the methods used won't necessarily lead immediately and
> directly to cures for other diseases. Likewise with heart disease
> and stroke. Even once we have solved these, there will still be liver
> failure, diabetes, alzheimer's, dozens of other diseases waiting to
> strike us down.
This is analagous to computer system optimization, where the mantra is
"there's always a bottleneck". You can take a poorly performing system,
analyze it, locate the performance bottleneck and remove it, but in doing so
you'll also reveal the next bottleneck.
So, with longevity I think we need to identify and remove the major
bottlenecks (risky behavior, poor diet, poor physical fitness, poor mental
fitness, etc) before we address the higher-level bottlenecks like telomere
length. What's the point of extending the theoretical upper limit from 150
years to 300 years if nearly everyone is dead before 120?
-Dave
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 09:56:45 MDT