The Mortality Option (Updated)

I usually won’t make blogs out of updates to the book, preferring to save them in a folder for the second edition. However, today I have decided to make an exception. The reason is a development that affects every one of us, and makes it more prudent for each living person to plan for the possibility of a much longer life than what conventional medicine and officials are telling us.

I called the relevant section of the book The Mortality Option because, in my view, we humans will soon achieve sufficient control of aging and accidents to eliminate all non-volitional death. That is, of course, one of the most transformative ideas imaginable for society and it may be coming sooner than I had anticipated.

Two major developments are worth noting. One is a major new study; the other is a major new discovery. The US FDA has for the first time ever approved a major study of a treatment intended to extend healthy life span. This is important for at least two reasons. FDA has never before recognized that the decay processes called aging can be delayed or even reversed. Recognizing those facts was a necessary first step to acknowledging that aging can be treated and managed as a disease.

Should the study have significant positive results without negative side effects, it will revolutionize views of aging the world over. The reason is that the US FDA basically serves as the world medical community’s primary evaluator of medical treatments (even though its process is often politically compromised, as discussed in the book).

It is highly likely that the study will have positive results without serious side effects. It is a study of Metformin, an Rx drug that could just as well be classified as a dietary supplement, being an extract of the French lilac. Metformin is routinely prescribed for people with Type 2 diabetic symptoms. It only appears to have dangerous side effects for certain very elderly people (ironically).

According to Life Extension Foundation, the basis for the FDA study is that Metformin “increases the number of oxygen molecules released into a cell, which appears to boost robustness and longevity.”

“(Those who proposed the study) hope is that a wide variety of age-related problems, loss of muscle tone, dizziness, falls, dementia, loss of eyesight, all of those things [sic]. That would be something never done before. If you really are doing something to alter aging, the population of interest is everybody. It surely would be revolutionary if they can bring it off.”

Said Dr. Robert Temple, deputy director at the FDA:

“You’re talking about developing a therapy for a biological phenomenon which is universal and gives rise to all of these diseases. And if you’ve got a therapy for this thing, these diseases just go away.”

NOTE: While one could replicate the anti-aging study on a personal basis by taking 1,000 mg. of Metformin daily, I am NOT recommending this as a course of action. I am not a doctor, and I am not giving you medical advice. It is risky for some people. You should only do this under competent medical advice.

The second major development is a stem cell breakthrough that may—if corroborated through further tests—make all types of damage and decay to all types of human tissues repairable. (Obviously, brain damage would mean irreparable loss of personhood, at least until and unless download is possible.)

According to a paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (one of the most prestigious journals):

“A stem cell therapy system capable of regenerating any human tissue damaged by injury, disease, or aging could be available within a few years, say University of New South Wales (UNSW Australia) researchers.

Their new repair system*, similar to the method used by salamanders to regenerate limbs, could be used to repair everything from spinal discs to bone fractures, and could transform current treatment approaches to regenerative medicine. …

“This technique is a significant advance on many of the current unproven stem cell therapies, which have shown little or no objective evidence they contribute directly to new tissue formation,” Pimanda said. “We have taken bone and fat cells, switched off their memory and converted them into stem cells so they can repair different cell types once they are put back inside the body.”

“We are currently assessing whether adult human fat cells reprogrammed into iMS cells can safely repair damaged tissue in mice, with human trials expected to begin in late 2017.”

(source: http://www.kurzweilai.net/a-stem-cell-repair-system-that-can-regenerate-any-kind-of-human-tissue)