Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs That Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime

I just finished reading Dr. Aubrey de Grey’s Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs that Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime (2007), it was an accessible introduction to the biology of aging, and a way that it might be defeated. By default, I am skeptical about anti-aging techniques or claims of some sort of fountain of youth. I’ve heard de Gray’s idea on a podcast, and watched his TED talk. It sounded reasonable, but I wanted to learn more about the science to have a more informed opinion, so I read the book. The plan is referred to as SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence). After reading the book, I think it is a plausible plan for an approach to reverse the effects of aging. I’ll summarize the idea and highlight some things from the book that weren’t covered in de Gray’s TED talk or podcast interview. The central assumption of the book is that aging is the accumulation of seven types of damage: Mitochondrial DNA mutations Nuclear DNA mutations Intercellular junk (e.g. lipofuscin) Extracellular junk (e.g. beta amyloids) Glycation (stiffens tissues leading to stroke, heart disease, etc.) Cells not dying when they are supposed to (e.g. cancer) Cells dying when they are not supposed to Each of these types of damage is covered in detail in the book, along with one or more possible solutions. For example, number (7) can be treated by using stem cells to replace the lost cells, this has already been demonstrated to work, but there are political hurdles to stem cell research. A comprehensive plan to completely reverse the effects of aging may change this. Another example is (1), he explained how mitochondria, which generate energy in the cells, have their own DNA, and they produce lots of reactive byproducts that damage the mitochondria’s own DNA. This can be fixed by saving a copy of the mitochondria DNA in the cell nucleus, where it is about 100 times less likely to mutate. Some forms of algae already do this, so it is not without precedent. An interesting one is (5), or glycation, which is the process that leads to the gradual stiffening of tissues. Glucose in the blood sometimes sticks to proteins and causes them to tangle up, this is what happens with caramelization, but at a much slower rate. There are already biotechnology companies that are working on drugs that target glycation endproducts, it is possible to undo the glycation damage, further research is needed before all forms of glycation are fixed, but it is simply a matter of money and time. All of the types of damage but (6) seemed relatively straightfoward to solve. It is (6) that is the most troublesome. Assuming all the other types of damage are satisfactorily solved, cancer is still a big problem. In order to keep a human healthy indefinitely, you’d need to prevent cancer growth. There are many types of cancer, and within cancers there are many types of cells, but they all have something in common. They have an active telemorase enzyme, which is what replenishes the telomeres (segments of junk DNA at either end, which shorten with every cell division). Since cancerous cells’ DNA keeps getting it’s telomere’s restored, they can reproduce indefinitely, this is the main threat of cancer, it can grow forever, until it disturbs its surroundings (your healthy tissue). Aubrey de Grey has a solution for this, but it is the most extreme of the book: Remove all telemorase genes from all cells of the human body. This means that the remaining human body only last about 10 years. Since nuclear DNA mutations are inevitable, and sometimes lead to cancers, having all your cells be unable to replenish their telomeres means that all cancers would eventually hit a wall (after about 50 cell divisions). Then, to solve the problem of your cells running out of telomeres, new stem cells could be engineered with a copy of your DNA (minus the gene for telemorase), and you could top off your stem cell supply every 5-10 years. The problem with making all your cells immortal is that cancer will eventually win. By making all your cells mortal, even cancerous ones, you can continue to get SENS therapy until you no longer want to stay alive. If aging is indeed the sum of those 7 types of damage, then this panel of therapies will enable humans to live indefinite youthful lifespans. So it appears possible to keep humans alive as long as they want to live, and prevent the decay and the eventual death of the body. This is fantastic, as the majority of healthcare spending is due to this decay. If SENS (or something like it) can be developed afforably, it would save nations trillions of dollars in healthcare and social security spending, as well as give people the choice to live for centuries. There is a follow up question that the book didn’t address, but it was outside the scope of the book, so I’ll address it here: [...]

The basic strategy is to bootstrap: figure out how to repair the age-related damage that we know about today, and use the extra lifetime this gives us to learn how to repair the damage that will develop as we live longer and longer lives. So if you reach the age of 200, say, the damage that has to be repaired is the damage that occurs to get to 100, plus whatever becomes an additional problem between 100 and 200, and so on. I think the basic strategy is quite sound, given the exponential progress in technology and especially bio-tech that we are seeing today. It is pretty common to hear researchers say that they can do more in a year today than they could do in 10 years previously, because the tools and our knowledge are both so much better. So once we can get to a point where we can extend current lives by 20+ years, there is a good chance that no one will die of old age ever again (except by choice). When I talk about this, one of the immediate concerns I hear is for the planet and running out of resources. Personally, I am convinced that when this problem arrives we will solve it, and that there are a variety of ways that this could be done (much lower birth rates, higher density on this planet, moving into space and/or to other planets), so I am much more concerned with curing aging. I don't want to see any more of my friends or family die, and I would like to enjoy life as long as I want. So I am all in favor of this program! The book is divided into three sections. One that talks about the problem of aging and treating it as an engineering problem to be solved; one that talks about the known issues that have to be solved and possible solutions; and one that talks about what each of us can do to contribute to solving the problem. The central section of the book is excellent, a superb treatise on why we age and the damage that causes age-related problems. It was also extremely encouraging to see the progress we've made in understanding these processes, and the progress we've made in finding ways to repair them. I hope this book will help more people realize what is possible, and that we need to push on this to get it to happen sooner rather than later. Highly recommended.

Through this book, de Grey and Rae introduced some very novel ideas that seem to slowly be getting some traction. The idea is that unwanted aging is best prevented by identifying and removing cumulative damage, and not trying to figure out exactly which biological mechanisms and processes cause it. Though that might be preferable, it's probably not as attainable. In essence, cure the disease, not the cause(s) or the symptom(s). Many feel the book devalues the approach of gerontologists. Maybe I'm wrong, but for me it doesn't. It only highlights the fact that gerontology isn't intent on preventing unwanted biological aging in humans. As such, it isn't as pragmatic, effective or realistic an approach to solving that problem. Being interested in aging, and wanting to prevent some aspect of it are, or can be two very different things. And that's fine. In some sense, the book argues that many conditions that are seen as age-related diseases, are just symptomatic of the larger disease of aging. They're subsets of aging. This seems fairly logical, but I'm not sure to what extent it's accurate. For one thing, it can be hard to differentiate between age- and time-dependent disease. In any case, it definitely has merit as an idea. The writing style is good, but very conversational. Some further editing might help. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as it might make the book approachable to a wider audience. So I don't think it suffers too much from that, but I personally would like more clarity and brevity. I would also like some more detail, but that's what the internet is for. Basically this is a very good introduction for someone who isn't familiar with regenerative medicine. With all the interviews, etc it might feel as if Aubrey de Grey is just echoing himself, but consider his target audience. It's important to keep the message fairly simple, fairly consistent and fairly current. He does that in shovels.

Very good book. There is no reason death has to be certain! Some day I am sure we will solve death. It is mind boggling how much we spend on the symptoms of death IE heart disease, stroke, and dementia's or cancers. Yet the root cause is ignored as not worthy of scientific exploration. It is just taken for granted that death and aging are inevitable while we rationalize and try and solve the inevitable symptoms that arise from aging.

Aubrey de Grey is a rare combination of head in the stratosphere, feet on the ground unique thinker. The world is filled with people who have grandiose thoughts but a complete unwillingness to do the leg work to check on the research that would make their thoughts scientific method test of, "Does it fit the data." And it is filled with people who cherry pick only the data that fits their theory. The world also has ample share of people who treat data as if there is no bigger picture, that the only valid ideas are those that are right there at ground level. Ending Aging doesn't take either of those 3 well-worn paths. Ending Aging takes in all the data, points out the limitations of it's own theories, builds a framework of thinking in which one can plan out a research strategy that isn't about aging gracefully, isn't about more life in our years, but is really about taking a comprehensive approach to putting aging in the same dustbin of history that we've already placed tetanus, polio, small pox and dozens of other past scourges of humanity. Ending aging is both bold and realistic, both broad brush strokes and deep dive. Ending aging isn't light reading. It's not a plan to follow some past paleo, natural guru whiz-bang notion. It is instead a credible, well thought out plan to attack aging at it's most vulnerable point, the addressable end products of the aging process. "Ant-Aging: has been aproached scientifically before. "Ending Aging" is the first book to apply engineering perspectives and disciplines to the process of aging. Engineering isn't done by mastering every trait, but by bounding problems within a tolerance level where predictability is possible. It is this new concept that makes ending aging a breakthrough watershed book in the field.

I am an avid supporter of anti-aging research and rejuvenation technologies. I wanted to read Aubrey De Grey's book because it seemed to be a great way to get a broad idea of what kinds of research people are doing, and what needs to be done in order to keep us youthful and healthy forever. I like the approach he takes, detailing his thought process in the beginning of the book and at the beginning of each chapter or section, and then explaining the scientific details in a way that a learned non-scientist could understand it. I know little to nothing about mitochondriopathy, for example, but I was able to understand what he was explaining in the book to some degree. Though the book may be over some people's heads (mine including), it's a great way to learn more about the research if you know about science, or if you yourself are a scientist looking to expand on the field. I'd recommend this book to any biologist, biochemical researcher, or anyone in a similar field looking for ways to expand their research in a meaningful way. Frankly, if we gave more attention to anti-aging research, we'd be able to move this along quickly and also cure numerous diseases in the process, as well as prevent many others. I'm almost done with the book. :)

Every review is accompanied by the biases of the reviewer. For myself, I am a reader with advanced degrees in areas other than the natural sciences. After reading the first 100 pages of this book, I was reminded of many reasons why I did not major in biology in college or grad school. The beginning portion of the book offered a conversational level of evidence about aging that was slightly more detailed than the TED TALKS that the author has also created. For example, he presents a fair bit of evidence suggesting that reduced calorie diets will create a longer active life, using examples from flies, worms, and mice. The next part of the book was the more technical section, which is also the majority of the book. The analogy from that portion was that "repairing aging by repairing cells" was similar to repairing a tire on a car--it does not matter whether a tire was flat from the car running over a nail, the tire tread wearing thin from over use, or any other reason--the cure would still be the same (put a new tire on the car). Putting the "new tire" of "new cells" in a body seemed to be the point of the next series of chapters. However, by the time I passed page 100, I knew I was skimming because the level of unfamiliar technical detail was not particularly attractive to me. For some readers, they will crave the detail. For myself, I stopped reading the book. When my peers or students ask me about a book, I conclude with a recommendation for a book if the book somehow causes me to see the world differently or act differently. I believe that this book might do that for some people. As for myself, I already had a general sense of the science from other journal articles and TED talks, so I stopped reading to examine other interests. The evidence seems quite credible, but the presentation was not appealing to my biased mind.

Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs That Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime This is a fascinating book and a must read for every scientist and engineer. The thesis is reasonable and well reasoned by a very capable author and scientist. Every ancient culture reports a golden age before the flood in which humans lived as long as 1000 years. In my computer architecture course I ask the students to estimate the number of bits the human brain can store, evalutating the neuron as an analog element representing many bits, and also including chemical synapses. The answers range from 10**17 to 10**19 bits. Then assuming that color vision of motion is the most challenging brain function I have them estimate how many teraflops it would take a supercomputer to equal that function. Now, if the brain functions at that level 16 hours a day and rests (sleeps) 8 hours a day how long will it take to fill it. The answer is about 1000 years! But what about the motivation? Naturally, almost everyone wants to live a little longer (in good health, of course), but 1000 years? Remember the Ancient Sybil at Locarno who asked the gods for immortality and got it. Her cry after only 500 years was: "I want to die." Of course, with Dr. Aubrey's theraputic strategy one could simply discontinue the anit-aging therapy and then die gracefully in about 50 years. Peter C. Patton Professor of Engineering