(((I've got a real soft-spot for these "used to be a sci fi pipe dream" news stories, epecially when I wrote a ton of sci fi about that issue myself.)))
(((The real acid test comes when you eat a handful of these scifi pills and you find yourself writing the kind of science fiction a 20-year-old guy would write. Weird flying women, guy fighting whales with harpoons on exotic alien planets, that kinda stuff.)))
Link: Who Owns the Fountain of Youth? | Wired Science from Wired.com.
"Anti-aging drugs, once a sci-fi pipe dream, are now the subject of serious scientific inquiry. Within the next decade, people may slow their biological clocks simply by taking a pill. (((SLOW them? The real money's in *reversing* them.)))
"So what's that pill going to cost? Will it follow a precedent set by $100,000-a-year cancer drugs? Could long, healthy lives become the privilege of the wealthy, with the poor consigned to disease and slow death? (((What, you mean like the USA? Oh wait.)))
"Yesterday we covered a study, published today in Nature, in which diabetic mice were successfully treated with a drug that activates the SIRT1 enzyme. SIRT1 belongs to a family of enzymes called sirtuins that regulate cellular function, and is closely tied to mitochondrial rejuvenation.
"Mitochondria are present in every cell in our body, busily converting glucose to chemical energy – a process that releases DNA-damaging free radicals. As damage accumulates, mitochondria malfunction and tissue fails. Some scientists think that mitochondrial degeneration underlies heart disease, diabetes, cancer, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and a host of other disorders. These conditions, they say, fall into a single class:
disease of aging."It's a controversial proposition, but it's not crazy...."
