10,000th Post -- We'll Never Get Out Alive

[mcscajun]

Of life, that is... :)

I have a couple of sisters who want to live to be 100. Some on DU have asked, "Would you want to live forever?"

I'm in the negative on both; now I see we may have no "outs" in the game; that the deck is stacked, the dice are loaded, and it's more than just a Lady and the Tiger choice for all of us.

Stem cell research has been a controversy for the last couple of years, and one of the items in dispute has been over research using adult stem cells vs. fetal stem cells. Let me go on record that I do not oppose stem cell research to be used in the curing of disorders and diseases. I'd like to see the paralyzed walk again, for Parkinson's to be cured, for Multiple Sclerosis to be wiped out.

It appears from the research in this article in today's NY Times, research originally published in the scientific magazine "Nature", that if scientists turn off a gene that shuts down adult stem cells, so that degenerative diseases usually blamed on aging could be averted, that same shutdown mechanism would increase cancer risks. Seems that the combination lock has a booby-trap: You want no cancer? You have to accept degeneration in your spine and joints. You don't want age-related disability? You'll probably get more cancers. This research also highlights the argument for using embryonic stem cells in this kind of research. Again, I'm in favor of this.

Gene Found to Switch Off Stem Cells During Aging
By NICHOLAS WADE

Biologists have uncovered a deep link between lifespan and cancer in the form of a gene that switches off stem cells as a person ages.

The critical gene, already well known for its role in suppressing tumors, seems to mediate a profound balance between life and death. It weighs the generation of new replacement cells, required for continued life, against the risk of death from cancer, which is the inevitable outcome of letting cells divide. To offset the increasing risk of cancer as a person ages, the gene gradually reduces the ability of stem cells to proliferate.

(snip)

The finding indicates that many of the degenerative diseases of aging are caused by an active shutting down of the stem cells that renew the body’s various tissues, and are not just a passive disintegration of tissues under life’s daily wear and tear, as is often assumed.

“I don’t think aging is a random process – it’s a program, an anti-cancer program,” said Dr. Norman E. Sharpless of the University of North Carolina, senior author of one of the three reports. The two other senior authors are Dr. Sean J. Morrison of the University of Michigan and Dr. David T. Skadden of the Harvard Medical School.

(snip)

One implication is that therapists hoping to increase longevity must tackle a system that may be hard to cheat. Any intervention that reduces production of the Ink-4 protein in order to prevent the age-related decline of stem cells will also increase the risk of cancer.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/06/science/06cnd-stem.html?ei=5094&en=db44a829e712934c&hp=&ex=1157601600&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print

So, basically, the game is rigged against cheating. You screw around with the Ink-4 protein, you get more cancers. You don't screw around with the Ink-4 protein, things go along as they have. I loved this quote from Dr. Sharpless, if only because I'm a fatalist: “There is no free lunch — we are all doomed.” It's not all gloom and doom, though. Like all research, this one will have many side benefits; it may yield valuable information for cancer researchers and geriatric disease specialists, and who knows? More pure research may yet find the right sequence to open the combination lock.

[mike_c]

1. this is one of those reports that really makes a light come on....

It's a very elegant premise, from a biological perspective.

[UndertheOcean]

2. So if cancer becomes completely treatable ... thats the end of old age?

Immortality at last.

[mcscajun]

4. I doubt it.

Depends, I suppose, on how cancer becomes "completely treatable". If there's any monkeying around with the Ink-4, then the risk of cancer escalates.

I still wouldn't want immortality.

Hell, I don't want to live to 100 unless I could be assured of four things: I'd have enough money to live on, health, the ability to live independently to that age, and no more Bushes in the White House, EVER!

Not much to ask, is it?

[mike_c]

7. well, not just like that, but this does suggest that...

...any attempt to significantly prolong human longevity will have to include ways to treat cancer, because cancer becomes more and more inevitable as time goes by. Preventing cancer is probably not possible without some really fundamental advances in cellular and molecular biology-- cancer is at least partly the result of basic, built-in conflicts between the fundamental self replication program at the single cell level and the need of multicellular organisms to control replication at a higher level of assembly.

[mcscajun]

8. Exactly. Much like the common cold isn't the disease, but the

mechanism the body uses to combat invaders.

It's the reason why (so far) all we can do is alleviate the symptoms of the common cold until it's done its job; we cannot make it go away. I suspect we really don't want to, unless we first figure out how to get rid of all the various things that it is fighting on our behalf.

[UndertheOcean]

10. We can't make the common cold go away because its caused by certain types

of viruses ... and most viruses cannot be treated like bacterial infections, only symptom management is possible.

But that doesn't mean that no cure for the common cold will be found in the future..

[mcscajun]

11. Different way to say it. We agree.

:)

[mcscajun]

3. Elegant is a good way to describe it. This is the phrase that lit me up

when I read the article: "I don’t think aging is a random process – it’s a program, an anti-cancer program."

This fits in neatly with some discussions I've had with another fatalistic friend of mine. We agree, and we know that this is NOT a popular view, that most of us might be better off letting the first thing that fate or the Universe throws at us to "take us out", extinguish our light, as it were, because sooner or later, something worse is coming to get you. By design, random, intelligent, or other, we've got a date with destiny, and the more tinkering we do with that destiny...

I'll let everyone fill in their own blank at the end of that sentence.

[PassingFair]

5. Made me think of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-S6_q_VPHw

:cry:

[mcscajun]

6. That's Beautiful. Thanks for sharing.

The last time I heard this tune was in the movie "Highlander". Gave me chills both times.

[UndertheOcean]

9. RIP Freddie Mercury..

...

[mcscajun]

12. Quiet kick...

:kick:

[Leopolds Ghost]

13. Five in One, Baby... One In Five

No One Here gets out alive...

[mcscajun]

14. I wasn't thinking of The Doors...but that IS appropriate.

:)

I hadn't thought of that song in Years. :smoke:

[mcscajun]

15. last kick...

:kick: