Anti-Aging: State of the Art

I am also an effective altruist and have been involved in the movement since 2012. I and others think that anti-aging and donating to SENS is probably a more important cause area than most EA cause areas (especially short-term ones) besides X-risk for the reasons below. 

As a side note, from the longer (200+ comment) discussion about anti-aging from an EA perspective on the EA Facebook group here, the main objection that held weight seemed to be 'bang for buck', and is also addressed below. 

In this piece: Why SENS Makes Sense [LW · GW]and this piece: A general framework for evaluating aging research. Part 1: reasoning with Longevity Escape Velocity [EA · GW] Emanuale Ascani evaluates the cost effectiveness of anti-aging, and donations to SENS Research Foundation using the EA criteria of scale, neglectedness and tractability. His estimation of cost-effectiveness of a SENS donation is $2.50 per 1000 quality-adjusted years life years saved [EA · GW], which dwarfs most other short-term cause areas in EA.

In terms of tractability and neglectedness, I'll add a few more thoughts:

(1) Tractability

I understand that considering the models of aging (mice, flies, yeast etc.) alone might give the impression that these therapies may not translate to humans. However:

Human trials for aging specifically for three of the four approaches I mentioned are currently underway, but the lack of human data for these approaches ought not to undermine the scientific feasibility of, given results of other trials in humans. Data from human trials suggest many of these approaches have already been shown to reduce the rate of cognitive impairment, cancer, and many other features of aging in humans. Given these changes are highly correlated with biological aging, the evidence strongly suggests the capacity for the approaches mentioned to slow biological in humans. 

In addition, in the past 2 years, human biological aging has already been reversed using calorie restriction, and with thymic rejuvenation, as measured by epigenetic (DNAm) aging. DNAm aging is fairly accurate in predicting time-to-death due to age-related conditions, so this is a promising finding for the field. Once more clinical trial data comes in, it will be easier to evaluate, but the preliminary evidence has demonstrated biological aging can be slowed in humans in the near future. 

Regarding tractability, it's also worth noting that the above has been made despite the research field receiving such comparatively little funding (explained in (2)). 

Of course, part of the research in anti-aging is to develop more accurate biomarkers of aging (e.g. multi-omics biomarkers of aging), since it's inherently a difficult process to measure. Funding in the field is required to develop better biomarkers of aging so that we can indeed provide more robust evidence that aging can be slowed in humans. Neverless the limited tools we have to measure aging (e.g. DNAm/Horvath's clock, Levine's clock) there has been sufficient proof-of-principle that aging in humans can be slowed to suggest that time-scales for anti-aging are fairly short, or could be with increased funding. 


(2) Neglectedness

I understand that the number of longevity biotech companies may (wrongly) suggest that the field is well-funded. But this number is not an accurate proxy for the relative funding received by basic geroscience to develop cures for aging, from which these companies are spun-out of. 

The crucial point is that although there is a lot of money in 'aging' in general (e.g. NIA's budget of $3 billion), and a lot of private money to finance longevity biotech companies spun out of basic aging research laboratories, there is a pitifully small amount of money financing basic geroscience research to find therapies to treat aging. This is especially true when compared to any other biomedical field, such as cancer, or neurodegeneration, which receive 1-2 orders of magnitude greater funding (e.g. NCI has an annual budget of $6.5 billion, compared to $100 million for geroscience research). I think many EA's assume academia is an efficient market that will self-correct to prioritise research with the greatest potential impact; but unfortunately, that's not how things work due to the incentives in academia. For example, cancer researchers have no incentive to start investigating aging, since it's outside the scope of their grant funding. Until the public realizes aging is a problem, and lobby governments to increase expenditure towards geroscience, the rate of progress remains comparatively slow, given what it could be. 

To give some numbers: Less than 0.2% ($100 million) of the NIH's $45 billion budget goes towards geroscience research to find cures for aging, even though the NIA  has a budget of around $3 billion. Moreover, organisations such as SENS finance some of the best research in the field have even smaller budgets ($5-10 million) which is why private small donations can still have a significant impact. 

Aubrey de Grey who has significant insight into the landscape of funding for anti-aging believes that $250-500 million over 10 years is required to kickstart the field sufficiently so that larger sources of funding will flow in. In most timelines, this will happen inevitably, but given 100,000 lives are lost per day until we reach longevity escape velocity, getting to these milestones as soon as possible is a key priority, and the numbers suggest doing so [EA · GW] represents one of the most cost-effective cause areas. 

Other comments: 

(1) Timelines
Regarding timelines and predictions, I think regardless of whether the FDA approves senolytics by 2030 or not, which is primarily a question of bureaucracy and politics more than science, the more interesting question is do senolytics actually work to slow aging. I would put the probability at 90% that one or more type of senolytic or senotherapeutic compound extend healthy lifespan by 5 years or more on average in humans if taken from a young enough age, regardless of whether they sufficiently meet the endpoints for specific disease indications required for FDA approval. 

(2) AI
I agree that AI, if it doesn't kill us all will probably have a huge impact on solving aging. However, this doesn't actually change my calculus as the importance of solving aging very much, given that most AI timelines imply millions or billions of people will most likely die of aging before aging is solved by AI, unless we have anti-aging drugs to keep as many people alive as possible in the meantime. 

Developing anti-aging compounds 'by hand' without the help of AI may seem slow and inefficient, but remember that we don't need to achieve negligible senescence before AI - we only need drugs that are sufficiently effective to bring as many people as possible to the point in time at which AI solves aging. For example, a drug or cocktail of therapies that extend life of all humans on Earth by 10 years essentially allows 10-years' worth of people who would otherwise have died of aging (~400 million people) to potentially reach the point at which AI solves aging and hence, longevity escape velocity. From an EA perspective, this seems like an incredible amount of good, and far better than most other cause areas out there, barring x-risks like AI safety. 

(3) Starry-eyed optimism
Current evidecne suggests curing in cancer is probably much harder than slowing aging, because you have to reverse the damage associated with aging (which predisposes to tumorogenesis) as well as kill of the cancer to restore a person to a state of health, since aging alters the tumor microenvironment in a way that causes cancer. Therefore I'm not sure how apt the analogy is. 

An analogy that is often thrown around in anti-aging circles is that of flight, which had a remarkably short timeline, or the Apollo missions. David Wood in his book, The Abolition of Aging makes a good case for how anti-aging could follow a similar timeline to flight. 

I have to disagree on 2 points: 

1. "When looking at the graph you present, a clear trend emerges: the more complex and larger the organism, the less progress we have made on slowing aging for that organism" -- the trend is not clear. Rather, the worms are an outlier on that graph. Mice are much more complex than flies and killifish (and much closer to humans) and yet, the results achieved are on par. 

2.  "The fact that there are 130 companies working on the problem with only minor laboratory success in the last decade indicates that the marginal returns to new inputs is low. " -- Most of them have their individual approaches to "the problem" . There are orders of magnitude more variables that affect the health and lifespan, and those companies are trying just a few of them. So, they are just scratching the surface of what it needs to be tried and done. More researchers and companies is definitely what is needed.

I once heard from a cancer researcher that we had, for all practical purposes, cured aging in mice, but the results have not yet translated into humans.

This seems untrue on its face. What we mean by "curing aging" is negligible senescence. The best that has been achieved in mice is doubling their life spans, AFAICT. Extended (human) lifespan would be nice, but it's not the goal. 

Thanks for the compliment! 

Although it only took two days to write, it was the product of several months of thinking about the topic, and putting the pieces together. 

That said, if you'd like to sponsor me to complete this sequence and/or create more content like this, I would be more than happy to. You can have a look at other content I've created for MindsetHealth.com.

Please feel free to drop me a line at jtt.harley@gmail.com

I completely agree that it is absurd that the kind of content in the OP is not more widely publicized. This was my precise motivation for writing this post. 

Unfortunately, there is no good 'where to start' guide for anti-aging. This is insane, given this is the field looking for solutions to the biggest killer on Earth today. 

The closest approximations to a 'where to start' guide for anti-aging would be:

• Is Human Life Extension Possible? - LongevityAdvice.com
• Longevity FAQ - Laura Deming (who is a longevity biotech VC)
• Lifespan by David Sinclair
• Ending Aging by Aubrey de Grey

That said, none of the above communicated all of the ideas that I wished to communicate in the OP in a succinct way. Again, this is precisely why I wrote it.  

It seems to be one of the better introductions out there, as those in touch with field on the longevity subreddit seem to have appreciated my introductory guide, as it's one of the top-rated posts in the past week and has been given 5 awards. As an aside, I'm planning on turning this into a sequence, so if you have ideas for future topics please let me know.

I totally agree regarding funding for 80k equivalent sites. If someone wants to provide financing for an anti-aging outreach and careers platform, count me in. I suppose the closest site would be Lifespan.io, which is a non-for-profit that provides high-quality content about the field, and crowdfunds research.

I also recommend emailing 80k and asking them to provide information on anti-aging career paths. I think it would be valuable for EA in general. If they are open to it, I would be more than happy to write something.

About me:

I'm not a geroscience researcher, but I am conducting neuroscience research at Oxford University after finishing my studies here and have a reasonable grasp of the geroscience field. I am vice president of the Oxford Society of Ageing and Longevity and in this role have had the privilege of interviewing influential figures in the field such as Aubrey de Grey, and researchers in the field such as Joao Pedro de Magalhaes. I've also had meetings with many other key figures in the field including David Sinclair. I also attended most of the major conferences in the field (ARDD2020, EARD2020, CSL Mechanisms of Aging 2020 etc.) last year. I've read probably in the order of 2000 academic papers in this field, and have been invited to give lectures on this topic at Oxford University and Monash University, Australia. I've also been a content writer at Mindset Health for 2 years so I have some background in science communication. The above reasons are why I felt qualified to write the OP.

If you have a 50-hour time budget to learn about anti-aging I would recommend the following:

• Watch 5 hours-worth of interviews with David Sinclair on YouTube.
• Read Lifespan by David Sinclair and Ending Aging by Aubrey de Grey
• Read the Hallmarks of aging paper and this great 2019 review of the field, and this 2014 paper introducing Geroscience
• Become familiar with the major philosophical objections to anti-aging, and their responses, here.
• Spend the rest of the time watching as many talks from the 2020 ARDD conference, available free, here. Start with talks by Brian Kennedy, Nir Barzilai, Judith Campisi, Eric Verdin, David Sinclair, and Joao Pedro de Magalhaes as they are the biggest names in the field.

If you can get through all that, I can email you a huge list of over 50 papers to read that covers all aspects of the hallmarks of aging and the current state of the field. 

In terms of contributing to the field, you might want to join the Longevity Subreddit and Lifespan discord server for advice about how best to leverage your specific skillsets, as there are many aging researchers in these communities. They can help advise you on career paths. 

I like your idea about meta-sites and networking platforms. My advice would be - if you think it should be done, why not give it try and do it yourself? At the end of the day, someone has to do it, and it might as well be you! The worst that might happen is you might learn something. Or, pursue the idea a bit and realise that others have already attempted it and failed or abandoned the project for reasons X, Y or Z.

I've been following the anti-aging field for almost 7 years: research news, overview articles, reviews etc. 
I don't know the author of OP, but I can say that the article he wrote here is as good as it gets (one of the best I've ever read), and, up to date. So are the recommendations he makes for further learning/immersion. I happen to have read many of the articles he cites, and they are all of very good quality.

The names he cites (A. De Grey, Sinclair, Barzilai and others) are stars in this field, mentioned in most other anti-aging blogs as well. 

IMO, the kind of background this author has (not exactly working in aging research, but still within biology and familiar with research in general) is great for writing an overview like this: because it is less biased in terms of a preferred theory and approach for anti-aging - unlike (to various extent) reviews written by a star researcher in the field. Even this author has a preference (SENS) (but perhaps for a good reason, you'll have to judge yourself).

So, the pointers given here are all great (just reddit/r/longevity alone will give you as much immersion and leads as you want).

Personally, I read/follow some of the sources he recommends, and also follow this blogger https://joshmitteldorf.scienceblog.com . 

(1) Aging is not entropy (second law of thermodynamics). In fact, both young and old individuals are in very high entropic states, and it is not entropy that kills people when they die of aging. Instead, it is the accumulation of biological 'damage' (i.e. hallmarks of aging) described in the original post. If aging was inevitable due to entropy it would be impossible according to the laws of physics for biological organisms such as the hydra and tortoise to display negligible senescence, and for sharks to achieve the 400+ lifespans that they do without any increase in mortality risk. 

(2) Your description of 'deleterious mutations' is accurate - genomic instability which includes DNA damage (as well as chromosomal rearrangement) is one of the 9 hallmarks of aging. But like all of the hallmarks, it is something we can attenuate. There are currently clinical trials for several DNA repair therapies such as nicotinimide mononucleotide (NMN), an NAD+-precursor molecule in Sinclair's lab at Harvard, and nicotinomide riboside (NR) which is being developed by the biotech company Chromadex. 

For a good primer on genomic instability, I encourage you to read this article from Lifespan.io.

I think the direction you've chosen, tissue engineering, will be very useful. One important organ for aging to be rejuvenated/replaced is thymus, whose degeneration is a major cause of declining immunity with aging.

"No matter how much you supplement the body, eventually deleterious mutations will accumulate." yes, however, in nature, deleterious mutations don't accumulate in all species. Hydra is an example/exception. It replaces its cells at such a fast rate, that this is an important reason why it doesn't accumulate mutations (and other damage) and manages to be biologically immortal. 
In fact, the direction you've chosen for research would do the same but at the level of tissues/organs, not cells. 

You are correct that interventions in mice do not always translate well to humans. Fortunately, several human trials have already shown that aging can be reversed. Time will tell how many of the current anti-aging approaches that have worked in mice will translate to humans.

The basic problem is that there's a good reason mice don't live long. Even if they didn't age, the environment in which they live means they are very likely to die in a few years from starvation or predation.  So genes that keep them from aging won't be selected for because of either or both of two reasons:  (1) The selective advantage of not aging, when you're likely to die young anyway, isn't enough to overcome random mutation that undoes the anti-aging genes. (2) The advantage of not aging comes at some (possibly rather small) cost in terms of increased likelihood of death from predation or starvation, or decreased fecundity early in life. (For instance, it might have an energy/food cost, or might come with decreased physical performance, such as in running speed.)

Humans live in a different environment, in which slower aging is more advantageous. And indeed humans age much slower than mice, presumably because we have genes that enable various anti-aging strategies that mice lack.

This comment doesn't make a lot of sense to me since mice used in the lab for lifespan studies are not subject to evolution today - rather, specific strains used for different kinds of experiments are purchased from specialized laboratories, where they are selectively bred.

So, when a drug is found to slow aging in mice, the first question in my mind would be, "is this drug enabling a mechanism that is already present in humans?".  

And the default answer to this question would seem to be "yes". If there's some simple biochemical way of slowing aging, why don't humans already have this, given that slower aging in humans would give a significant selective advantage? (Even (especially?) in pre-civilizational societies, significant numbers of people die of old age rather than from violence or starvation.)

I don't agree with this. Senescent cells (one of the 9 hallmarks of aging) for example accumulate both in humans and mice with older age, and contribute to age-related tissue and organ dysfunction in both. 

Senescent cells by definition are apoptosis-resistant, meaning they are resisting the mechanisms (found in both mice and humans) to remove them. Hence, senolytic drugs extend lifespan in mice and probably humans by removing these cells, since the machinery in the body is unable to. 

On this reasoning, one would expect that a successful anti-aging program would have to involve something complicated, not easily produced by evolution. Something like, for example, nanobots inspecting cells for damaged DNA (comparing against a consensus sequence derived from a large number of the person's cells), and killing cells that are too damaged.  Or at least, if there is some relatively simple intervention that helps, one would expect it to be sufficiently subtle that it doesn't show up in mice (but only after decades of life, when selective pressure for it in humans is comparatively small).

Following on from my previous comment, your comment here is not true. The most promising strategy to slowing aging is not overly complicated in principle, even though it is a technical challenge - it simply involves routinely repairing the damage associated with the hallmarks of aging as they emerge. This can be done even if the precise causes of that damage (from normal metabolism) are not known.   

I suggest you learn more about the field by watching some talks on YouTube by David Sinclair, Brian Kennedy, Judith Campisi, Aubrey de Grey, Nir Barzilai, Joao Pedro de Magalhaes or any other of the speakers here to give you a better idea of the field of research. 

My understanding is that the usual lab mouse breeds are highly inbred, resulting in high levels of cancer. That makes is "easier", in some sense, to extend their lifespans - especially by interventions which trade off cancer risk against other age-related deterioration. For instance, there are ways to make cells more sensitive to DNA damage, so they undergo senescence at lower damage levels. This can decrease cancer risk, at the cost of accelerating other age-related degeneration.

I agree that the LessWrong community can have a positive impact on the cryonics field by signing up for cryonics and direct more capital in to this extremely under-funded field. Cryonics is especially relevant for people older than 40 today who are much less likely to make it to longevity escape velocity.

However, I disagree that (1) there is barely anything people can do now to slow their aging and (2) there is barely anything that the average person can do to support the research and development of anti-aging therapies. I plan to write a separate post covering these points, but I'll provide a few thoughts here.

Regarding (1), there are a multitude of actions you can take now to slow your aging and risk of age-related diseases (disclaimer: NOT a substitute for medical advice):

Non-pharmacological:

• Exercise - attenuates many hallmarks of aging
• Intermittent fasting - improves metabolic switching and cellular stress resistance
• Maintain strong social ties - social relationships are a strong predictor of lifespan
• Overcome depression, which accelerates biological aging
• Optimize your circadian rhythm
• Take a biological age test such as myDNAage or InsideTracker and monitor your age over time.
   

Pharmacological:

On the safer end (for younger people or people with a lower risk tolerance):

• Metformin - calorie restriction mimetic that controls blood sugar
• Quercetin - anti-aging flavenoid that acts as a senolytic
• Resveratrol - sirtuin enzyme activator and calorie restriction mimetic
• Vitamin D - blood tested to optimize, ideally 2000IU per day
• Vitamin B12 - as many people are deficient

On the more extreme end (for older people or people with a higher risk tolerance):

• Rapamycin - an mTOR inhibitor that attenuates senescence
• NAD-boosters such as NMN and NR - enhancers of stem cell function
• Dasatinib - a senolytic usually used in combination with quercetin

In my cupboard at home, I have a bunch of these pills, as do other people involved in this field who are involved in this research. If you watch interviews from Harvard aging researcher David Sinclair, you will see he takes these supplements, as do many of his millions of followers. These are probably a good starting point given Sinclair is one of the most knowledgeable and researchers in the field.

Ultimately, much or all of the above strategies will be superseded by superior anti-aging technologies in the future (gene therapies, nanotechnologies etc.) but they are a good starting point for increasing longevity and bringing more awareness to the field. 

A nice article about a 32-year old biohacker who spent $200k on biohacking his health based on the research is here. 

Regarding (2), there are many ways to contribute to the field:

• Become a Lifespan.io hero (subscriber)
• Donate to SENS Research Foundation
• Learn more about the field and discuss it with others, to increase public awareness of the field to help increase:
  • Government expenditure in geroscience research, which is a crucial bottleneck
  • Larger private donations to organizations like SENS
  • Financing of longevity biotech startups
     

The above are important actions since funding into the basic geroscience research is a key rate-limiting step in progressing the field. There is a fair amount of money to finance the longevity biotech companies, but funding for geroscience is pitifully small - less than 0.2% ($100 million) of the NIH's $45 billion budget, even though the NIA for example, has a budget of around $3 billion. Moreover, organisations such as SENS finance some of the best research in the field have even smaller budgets ($5-10 million) which is why private small donations can still have a significant impact. 

Hi Gerald, 

In the original article, I linked to Alcor's calculation of the probability that cryonics works. It ranges from 0.2-77% and this calculation is based on the 14 variables below:

1) Materialism is correct
2) Identity encoded in structure
3) Favorable conditions for suspension
4) Suspension preserves enough information
5) Mishap-free storage
6) Cryonics organization survives
7) Sufficient social stability
8) Cryonics is continuously legal
9) Nanotechnology is physically possible
10) Nanotechnology is perfected
11) Nanotechnology is non-catastrophic
12) Cryonic revival is "cheap enough"
13) Cryonic revival is permitted
14) The social problem
   

Depending on your probabilities for these variables, the estimation of the overall probability that cryonics will work overall will vary. 

Thank you very much, I appreciate it. This is only a short introduction to the field, and I plan to write several follow-up articles in the near future to create a larger sequence (covering: aging and COVID-19, the ethical arguments for/against anti-aging, aging and cancer, and more anti-aging therapy approaches). 

Dave Asprey's book, Superhuman is pretty good - it explains the hallmarks of aging in simple terms and provides generally good advice for limiting the damage associated with the hallmarks. He draws upon a lot of scientific literature, and has over 400 academic references. 

Asprey does a good job synthesising the research into practical steps a person can take to lower their rate of biological aging - something that most of the researchers in the field don't have the time to do. A few things are a bit wacky, but in general I'd say 95% of the advice he says is pretty good, and the other 5% won't do any harm. 

Dave Asprey is a pioneer of the longevity biohacking community, and runs a supplement company called bulletproof. 

But, if you don't like his advice, then you can look towards Rhonda and Attia. 

Dr Rhonda Patrick has a PhD in cell biology and is extremely knowledgeable about aging and longevity - just watch her interviews with David Sinclair, Valter Longo or Steve Horvath - all big names in the field. She talks to them on the same level since she knows the literature very well. 

Dr Peter Attia is an MD who is also very clued up on the aging field too, and on his podcast has also interviewed many big names such as David Sinclair and Nir Barzilai. I recommend this talk of his as an introduction to some important concepts in aging. 

David Sinclair's book Lifespan is also the gold standard for personal anti-aging strategies, which are summarised here. 

Just of the top of my mind: an example lab that makes (relatively heavy) use of computational approaches is that of J.P. de Magalhaes (U.of Liverpool, so not too far from yourself).

More generally, I believe many labs nowadays could use the help of a software engineer. You could read more on aging research (this article has great links, AFAICT), choose a direction, a lab, and ask them if you can help them. 

I might to the same, one day.

Hi Thomas, 

Great to hear you are interested in contributing to the field!

You can have a look at LongevityList.com and see if there's anything on there. It's a new project so I'm not sure how regularly it's updated.

Alternatively, you could join the Longevity Subreddit and the Lifespan Discord server and ask there, as there are many people involved in the field there willing to help. Often, people like yourself will ask about job opportunities and get connected with opportunities.

Hope that helps!

Very interesting.  Assuming we eliminated everything but accidental causes looks like we should live to about 120+ years. I think Sinclair had said that was the expected lifespan as well.

Taking the tool at face value, it seem that both personally and socially effort focused on circulatory diseases should give the biggest bang for the buck. Then again I didn't run through different cases of combination so...

Really love the app, great work!

Just a bug I found (I think it's a bug?) - if I untick all the boxes, the median age of death goes to 0.

Hi Alexey,

So, having talked to a number of people in longevity biotech, I'm skeptical as to whether view (1) i.e. Sinclair's 'information theory of aging' which posits epigenetic aging is the master regulator for the other hallmarks is accurate, and that cellular reprogramming alone is sufficient to slow aging. I think the information theory of aging is good PR for the field, but I don't think it's entirely correct. 

Still, the next 5 years of research will provide more clarity as to the relationship between epigenetic alterations and the other hallmarks of aging. I hope (1) is true although from the data I've seen and people I've spoken to behind the scenes, I don't think it's likely that cellular reprogramming alone will be enough. 

I think the hallmarks develop to some extent independently, even though there is some level of cross-talk between them, and will have to be individually addressed.

 

Yes, we need improved biomarkers of aging. Once we have biomarkers that are accurate enough to detect changes in aging or anti-aging over the course of months, it will be much easier to obtain high-quality data for prospective anti-aging compounds.

Another solution that aging researchers have discussed is developing frameworks for decentralized clinical trials that could bypass institutional approval but still produce credible results.  

There also needs to be a paradigm shift in society, biomedical research, and regulatory bodies like the FDA to recognise and classify aging as a disease. 

Open science which aims to make all science accessible to everyone, whether amateur or professional, is would also help to accelerate the rate of research. 

already known to be safe interventions, like vitamin D

Any pointers on what to search to find more info on this from actual research? I wasn't aware that vitamin D was considered to have anti-aging properties, or that there was much consensus on its safety.

Another option is to advocate for emergency authorization for old people.

It got the necessary approval in 2015 and in 2019 a rich private individual seems to have given them the missing 40$ million to run the trial: https://www.longevity.technology/worlds-first-anti-aging-trial-gets-green-light/ and the plan was to start the trial at the end of 2019. It might very well be running currently. Maybe someone else has more info? 

Copied from the response to another, similar, comment:

There are a number of publicly-traded longevity biotechnology companies. You could invest in Unity Biotechnology (NASDAQ:UBX) or Proteostasis Therapeutics (NASDAQ:PTI), for example. 

I also recommend the Longevity Market Cap newsletter.
 

Here are some links that may be useful:
https://investoraccess.masterinvestor.co.uk/events/investing-in-the-age-of-longevity/
https://transhumanplus.com/investments-on-antiaging/
https://investingnews.com/daily/life-science-investing/longevity-investing/longevity-research-companies/
https://www.nanalyze.com/2019/08/top-10-companies-longevity/

Aging Biotech Info
https://agingbiotech.info

LongevityList (companies search)
https://longevitylist.com/explore/?type=company&sort=latest

Fixed, thanks!

I'm curious, where were you going with this in the context of this post's anti-aging SOTA approaches?

"Why not both?" If you have spent any time reading anti-aging & AGI literature, it's clear that there is minimal funging: just not much overlap of funders, researchers, or hobbyists. Most of the people doing anti-aging research have little interest in AI and vice-versa, even if there are many people who are interested in both, they represent only a small fraction of the people interested in just one. Most of the money not spent on anti-aging won't go to AGI safety but something else entirely, and vice-versa.

And if all the AI stuff ultimately whimpers out, as is still entirely possible, then you will be very glad that anti-aging research continued. Biology research tends to not be amenable to "throw lots of money at it at the last minute".

The probability of dying of aging is 100%.
The probability of dying of AGI is less than 100%.
The probability of the development of anti-aging tech via non-AGI means is close to 100% (e.g., senolytics).
The probability of the development of anti-aging tech via AGI is not close to 100%.
Therefore, some of us prefer to focus more on aging than AGI.

If you're referring to median lifespan, we already know that many factors increase lifespan by up to 10-15 years in humans cumulatively: exercise, fasting, diet and so on. So it is highly likely that therapies (e.g. mTOR inhibitors) that potentially act through similar pathways will extend median lifespan. 

In terms of maximal lifespan, I'm not sure of the strength of those theoretical reasons in light of mechanisms of aging such as cellular senescence, which is known to strongly contribute to the aging phenotype in mice and humans and which can be removed in humans now (2020 study). 

Evolution is not optimizing for lifespan...only on gene transmission. So in general, I think arguments along the lines of 'as humans we are hitting our natural limit of lifespan' are poorly substantiated.        

I did not include the Tel Aviv/HBOT study since it is not considered a promising approach to anti-aging by most researchers in the field. The conclusions of the study are potentially misleading, due to the highly improbable senolytic effect of oxygen therapy.

In my recent interview with Dr Aubrey de Grey, I asked him about this same study (timestamp: 40:30), and he said that it was enormously over-hyped. 

I encourage you to read this article, which explains the media circus around the study, and critiques the science: 
https://www.lifespan.io/news/media-circus-surrounds-hyperbaric-oxygen-study/

Your comment alludes to 3 exceedingly common objections to anti-aging: 
 
(1) 'Death and aging bring meaning to life' 

(2) Distributional justice (i.e. 'only for the rich') 

(3) Overpopulation (resource overconsumption, environmental impact etc.) 
 

All of these objections have been responded to at length by David Wood in his book The Abolition of Aging, Aubrey de Grey in his book, Ending Aging and David Sinclair in his book, Lifespan and on blogs such as FightAging.org and Lifespan.io. 

Anyway, I plan to write a Part 2 post covering the main ethical arguments including the three you reference, but will provide a short summary here: 

(1) 'Death or aging brings meaning (or happiness) to life'

My point is this: Age and suffering give meaning to our lives. Technology slowly but surely eliminates both. Without any struggle - and as close to paradise as ever - where will we find meaning? In continuous progress? In "higher" quality of life?* 

While chronological aging gives meaning to our lives, as existing over time allows to experience reality for longer (allowing for self-actualisation, building friendships and relationships, pursuing passions and so on) biological aging - that is, our slow and fatal physiological decline by the 9 hallmarks of aging that are slowly killing us, that currently accompanies chronological aging - doesn't. If you think people get happier as they get more frail, weak, lose their sight, hearing, and have higher chances of cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer's and type 2 diabetes just take a closer look at depression statistics - the highest rates of depression are among the elderly, who account for the most DALYs of any age demographic, from depression. 

Honestly, ask yourself - do you think there is any meaning associated with neurodegeneration, and Alzheimer's disease? Because as a neuroscientist I can tell you that it is impossible to age without neurodegeneration, which leads to extremely high rates of Alzheimer's disease in the elderly. Neurodegeneration involves losing one's memories, cognition and other mental faculties, which also predisposes to depression, so it's unclear how this process would be valuable for improving wellbeing, as you suggest.

The attempt to ascribe 'meaning' to the suffering that accompanies biological age-related decline and the diseases it is associated with (cancer, heart disease, type 2 diabetes etc.) is just a manifestation of the naturalistic fallacy coupled with lazy conservatism inherent in human nature.  

The reality is: biological aging f*cking sucks, and no person who is experiencing the decline associated with aging (frailty, heart problems, signs of cancer etc.) would give up the opportunity to take therapy to bring them to a more youthful state of being biologically 20-30 years old with complete physical and cognitive function, given the opportunity. If you have compelling evidence on the contrary, please provide it.

For more about deathism, the pro-aging trance and 'death brings meaning to life' arguments, read articles, here, here and here. Also consider reading Aubrey de Grey's book, Ending Aging David Sinclair's book, Lifespan and David Wood's book, The Abolition of Aging.

(2) Distributional justice (i.e. 'only for the rich')

Will the "anti-aging cure" (considering aging as a disease still rings a bit weird to me) be available to all strata of society? Or will it only enlarge the cleft between haves and have nots? 

I covered this in another comment in this thread, but will copy and paste the response for your convenience:

• Anti-aging therapies are in principle no different from existing medical treatments such as anti-viral or anti-cancer therapies. For example, there is little philosophically difference between a cancer therapy (e.g. molecules that kill cancer cells) to extend healthy lifespan and a senolytic drug (e.g. molecules that kill senescent cells) to extend healthy lifespan. In the same way that few would object to the development of better cancer therapies today (e.g. CAR T-cell therapies) that only the rich can afford (and are not, for example, currently available to people in Africa), few should object to anti-aging drugs that extend healthy lifespan, even if only the rich can initially afford them too. Basically, many lifesaving medical interventions are initially expensive, and therefore only available to the rich, but this isn't a reason to inhibit research. An additional point: if you support current medical research - which functions essentially to extend healthy lifespan, you should also support anti-aging, which also aims to extend healthy lifespan, though through prevention rather than cures. The only difference between the two is the approach, and the likely effectiveness - anti-aging is likely to be more effective at accomplishing the goal. Hence, we should be more enthusiastic about this approach, if anything.
• Therapies are unlikely to stay expensive for long. When patents expire after 10-20 years, drugs usually become ridiculously cheap, and so any distributional inequality is unlikely to last long. Metformin, a life-saving diabetes drug (that is also being studied for its anti-aging properties) is a good example - it was initially expensive but the price has now plummeted to 31 cents per tablet in 2013. There are numerous economic forces that will drive low prices - governments are incentivised to subsidise these therapies, to populations healthy and stave off the diseases of old age that cost healthcare systems trillions of dollars worldwide annually (e.g. dementia alone costs over $1 trillion), which is otherwise set to grow due to an aging population. Insurance companies will similarly be incentivized to subside these therapies, to keep their clients healthier and able to avoid the chronic diseases of old age for longer. A good analogy is car sales - cars used to be too expensive for most people but are now ubiquitous and largely affordable. Since the market size for anti-aging therapies (i.e. all humans on Earth) is huge, as it is for cars, we would expect the huge demand to result in lower prices. Food technology is another, more recent example. In 2013 the first lab-grown burger was $325,000, and two years later the cost fell to $12.
• Not developing anti-aging technology doesn't help the poor. Anti-aging technologies only available for the rich would not help the poor, but not having these technologies available to the rich - that is, allowing the rich to age and die like the rest of us - also wouldn't help the poor. What matters is not only that the gap between rich and poor is closed, but also how it is closed. For example, those in Western countries could give up all their comforts and wealth to be economically equal to the lowest African countries. But this is not the goal - the goal is to bring the African countries up in wealth, not bring economically prosperous nations down. The same applies to anti-aging: the goal is to bring everyone's healthspans up (even if it means there will exist some inequality, initially), not keep everyone's healthspans down for the sake of equality. 

(3) Overpopulation and resource constraints

The initial question is purely pragmatic: more people on Earth living longer lives would mean more energy expenditure, more space needed to accommodate them. Even if this could be technologically solved with higher efficiencies (which themselves would not be offset by behavior adaptation), what will it do to the fabric of society?

• Demographics The Earth's population today is not expanding in an uncontrollable, exponential way and in fact in many parts of the world population is either now or soon will be declining (e.g. European countries, Japan, China etc.). The only regions of population growth are south-east Asia and Africa, both of are predicted to at around 11 billion in 2100 in line with the demographic transition model and then fall. In many parts of the world, underpopulation is likely to be a bigger problem than overpopulation in the near future due to dangerously low birth rates. 
• Aging population A much bigger problem than overpopulation is the 'aging population' and carrying capacity (i.e. the proportion of individuals over 65+ and frail etc. due to age-related decline) which is increasing globally and will immensely burden the healthcare system, and the younger workforce, in the absence of anti-aging technologies. However, anti-aging technologies allow those in their 60s and beyond to remain in a healthy, functional state and able to work and remain free of chronic diseases for much longer.
• Neo-Malthusian collapse: The notion of overpopulation is common misconception that is completely unsubstantiated by empirical literature. Neo-Malthusian concerns have been touted since the 18th century but have not held up since as populations expand, so too does the technology to support larger populations. The whole notion of 'carrying capacity' assumed there was no possible way to (for instance) increase crop yields, fortify foods, significantly increase population density via taller buildings and so on. 
• Won't a larger population exacerbate climate change? Climate change is a huge problem and while population size is a multiplicative factor in environmental impact, developing technology to decrease carbon intensity and increase and recycling effectiveness, as described by MIT economist Andrew McAffee in his book, More from Less, is feasible and the rational solution. As David Wood says in my recent interview with him: 'if we are serious about solving aging, we should not fetishize population size (as a factor), we should be working elsewhere'. Interestingly, many of the technologies that will make rejuvenation biotechnology possible can also assist with transforming agriculture to claim back land that is currently being used inefficiently, such as synthetic biology (lab grown meat) and nanotechnology (repair and recycling). Additionally, geoengineering solutions (green energy - solar/wind), space tech, and policy changes may help to reduce emissions. So although the world is already transitioning to renewables, (for example, the UK recently passed the benchmark of 50% renewables) and the rate is not necessarily fast enough, restricting population size by allowing the widespread suffering and death from aging is not the most ethical nor effective way to manage climate impact. In the same way that allowing COVID-19 to kill millions of people is not an ethical solution to climate change (which, by the way, is primarily an age-related disease that would benefit greatly from anti-aging, as I will discuss in a future post). 
• We won't run out of space? In 2012, the team of the project “Per Square Mile” led by Tim de Chant produced an infographic to show how big a city would have to be to house the world’s 7 billion people. If populated as densely as New York, the entire world's population could fit into an area the size of Texas. So there is more than enough space on Earth to accommodate a vastly greater population of many trillions.
• Won't we run out of food? If we compare the food supply in 1965 and in 2013, we can clearly see that overeating is more of a global issue than undernourishment, as in most countries, the calorie intake has increased significantly. If we compare the food supply in 1965 and in 2007, we can clearly see that overeating is more of a global issue than undernourishment, as in most countries, the calorie intake has grown significantly. This means that a population explosion during this time of over 4 billion people
  has passed relatively unnoticed – all thanks to the “Green Revolution” (rapid development of new agriculture techniques, such as fertilizers, irrigation and selection). The concern that there will be a food shortage in the future neglects further technological advances such as aquaponics, hydroponics, aeroponics, vertical farming, 3D-printed housing, algae farms, and many other technologies that could provide enough food for all. 
• Negligible senescence: Now, eventually if we completely abolish death (i.e. achieve 'negligible senescence'), then yes population size will continue to grow, assuming populations continue to reproduce. But this population growth is 1) not as rapid as people imagine 2) not a concern that is unlikely to be solved by technological advances and 2) not a reason to deny those alive today access to life-saving anti-aging therapies.

For a more detailed response to this objection, I recommend this long-form article.

Final comment: Anti-aging is basically just today's medicine, but better (and preventative)

It's worth noting that all of the above objections also apply to current medicine too (which similarly aims to extend healthy lifespan) albeit to a lesser degree due to the ineffectiveness of this approach. The philosophical difference is that anti-aging is potentially more effective at accomplishing medicine's goal - to extend healthy lifespan - by targeting the root cause of the problem (hallmarks of aging) rather than allowing the damage of aging to accumulate and then only targeting the 'symptoms' (i.e. diseases of aging - cancer, heart disease etc.). It seems strange to me that you would support (I assume) the less effective approach to healthspan extension of today's medicine, but not support the more effective approach of anti-aging. Ultimately, the two approaches service the same goal, but one intervenes earlier, when the damage has accrued but before symptoms emerge rather than when damage has accrued to an even greater level that causes symptoms to emerge. 'Prevention is better than a cure' as they say, and this certainly looks to be the case with anti-aging.

Note: if you found some of these arguments more/less compelling than others, please let me know as it will help to inform my second post :) thanks.
 

I am not under the impression that physical comfort is what was opposed in Fight Club. After all, hunter-gatherers also accessed more resources than they could ever consume, like top-quality fresh air and sunlight. I think it was consumerism. Under consumerism, consuming is not driven by personal motivation, but by the external general goal of supporting the economy. Instead of being an end, the consumer has to be turned into a means to that single end, a slave to consumption, through ads and social pressure.

Developing platform technologies is important in pharma and biotech, and that's happening. But the limiting factor seems to be testing anti-aging drugs, and developing better biomarkers. There is no shortage of potential anti-aging therapies - there are hundreds waiting to be tested. The limiting factors are funding and researchers. We need more laboratories working on testing new therapies for anti-aging. 

Yes, organisms (even worms) are way more complex than any codebase so far, and researchers don't fully  understand  them and yet - as you can see from this and other reviews - very significant lifespan (and healthspan) increases have been achieved. Even in mice and rats, which, aside from an inferior brain, are about as complex as humans.

To me, this indicates that the aging process is quite malleable, with many ways to tweak it, which researchers are finding through theories, educated guesses and trial and error.

(1) Charity recommendations

I would recommend donating to SENS Research Foundation or Lifespan.io. 

SENS has funded a lot of really great research in the field, which you can view here. 

Lifespan is involved in advocacy, and have been successful in hosting conferences and providing a platform for information sharing in the field. They have also crowdfunded some research.

Both the research and advocacy components are crucial for helping to expand the longevity field. 
 
(2) Complexity of aging

Yes, the causes of aging are complicated - that is, how the damage accumulates - is complicated. But treating aging doesn't actually require understanding how the damage accrues, using the SENS (strategies for engineering negligible senescence) approach. It only requires how to ameliorate the various types of damage (hallmarks of aging). 

Bear in mind that overwhelming evidence in the past 20 years has suggested that all aging-related processes are, looking upstream, a result of the hallmarks of aging and that there is no other cellular phenomenon besides these 7-10 processes (depending on how they are classified) responsible for the aging process that cannot be reduced to them. In the past 20 years, no new hallmarks have been discovered and researchers are fairly confident that these are the only hallmarks there are to discover. 
 
Here's Aubrey de Grey's explanation of the SENS approach: 

"The basic point we're making there is to contrast the regenerative approach with the more traditional idea of trying to make metabolism create molecular and cellular damage more slowly. In order to do the latter, we would need to understand our biology massively better than we do at present, so as to avoid creating unforeseen side-effects. By contrast, with the regenerative approach we don't need to know much about how damage comes about: it's enough just to characterize the damage itself, so as to figure out ways to repair it. We're effectively sidestepping our ignorance of metabolism. Rejuvenation biotechnologies are simply regenerative therapies that pre-empt the diseases and disabilities of old age. They consist of molecular, cellular or whole-organ interventions that restore the structure of the target to something like how it was in early adulthood."


 

Hi icemtel, 

There are a number of publicly-traded longevity biotechnology companies. You could invest in Unity Biotechnology (NASDAQ:UBX) or Proteostasis Therapeutics (NASDAQ:PTI), for example. 

I also recommend the Longevity Market Cap newsletter.

For larger investments, you could also look into longevity biotech VC's such as Apollo Health Ventures.

Here are some links that may be useful:
https://investoraccess.masterinvestor.co.uk/events/investing-in-the-age-of-longevity/
https://transhumanplus.com/investments-on-antiaging/
https://investingnews.com/daily/life-science-investing/longevity-investing/longevity-research-companies/
https://www.nanalyze.com/2019/08/top-10-companies-longevity/

Thanks for the tip - just added 'become a researcher' and 'work for a longevity biotech company' as additional ways to help the field. 

You're welcome! 
I mentioned 'tortoises' rather than 'turtles' in the OP and was referring to species such as the Aldabra giant tortoise (Aldabrachelys gigantea). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5743229/

That's a reasonable challenge. However, the definition you cited (from Wikipedia) is the classical definition of a pandemic, and according to the WHO, does not take into account disease severity and transmissability, and would imply relatively harmless influenza outbreaks would also classified as pandemics - which is somewhat controversial in terms of definition. So depending on how you define a 'pandemic' (i.e. with or without disease severity and transmissibility taken into consideration) my original claim may be true. 

Thank-you, fixed. 

Yes, the Conboy lab are doing some of the best research in the field. The Brunet 2019 review I linked in the OP cites work from Conboy's lab on plasma dilution / parabiosis. I know that the company affiliated with Wyss-Coray's company Alkahest have plasma trials for Alzheimer's. 

Definitely. There are over 50 therapies in clinical trials for aging today, addressing various components of cellular aging (i.e. all 9 hallmarks), and many have shown life extension effects in mice, and amelioration of the decline associated with age-related conditions in humans. I'm convinced some of these therapies, when administered from mid-life onwards, would extend human lifespan by 5 years or more. Especially if their delivery is personalised and biomarker-optimised. I expect some combination of these therapies, in tandem, to extend healthy human lifespan by 10 years or more.  

The challenge lies in proving this within the next 10 years, since it would take up to 50 years to run a full-length human lifespan study. So it comes down to how we define robust evidence that aging can be slowed therapeutically. For this, we need accurate biomarkers of aging, and unfortunately, we don't have the best aging biomarkers yet. 

On the other hand, one could argue we already have robust evidence that aging can be slowed from thymic rejuvenation (using GH+DHEA+Metformin) demonstrated in 2019 to reverse biological age by 2.5 years with 1 year of treatment. However, the extent to which this can be considered robust evidence that aging can be slowed depends on who you are talking to in the field, and their familiarity with aging clocks. 

If we are using epigenetic aging as the measurement, I'd bet all the money in my bank that at least one additional pharmacological compound will be shown to slow or reverse epigenetic aging in the next 10 years. That said, this measurement is likely to become redundant very soon, due to the development of multi-omics biomarkers of aging that will be more accurate in measuring aging. 

So overall, I'm very confident that some of the 50 compounds being trialed today, and certainly some of those that will be discovered in the next 10 years, will slow aging - which is a less controversial claim than many people realize since some of these therapies (such as mTOR inhibitors like metformin) replicate the beneficial effects of lifestyle factors we know already increase healthy lifespan and slow aging as measured by epigenetic markers, like intermittent fasting.

Hi bardstale,

'Deregulated nutrient sensing' is one of the 9 hallmarks of aging covered in the article, and includes insulin signaling (IGF-1, etc) - that is, insulin signaling pathways. 

Dietary protocols such as the fasting-mimicking diet (FMD) and ketogenic diets attenuate IGF-1 which is potentially beneficial for longevity. However, lifestyle protocols were not the focus of this article, since ultimately, lifestyle interventions alone are not likely sufficient to extend maximal lifespan beyond 125 years. Another way to phrase this, is that these diets are 'anti-aging' insofar as they slow the rate of aging, but not reverse it to a level that could potentially be achieved with therapies.

The goal of anti-aging research is to provide new therapies that can allow us to live much longer than is available with the best approaches today (diet/exercise/meditation/low stress etc.). 
 

Why don't you provide some references for other readers?

It seems to me that unlike say, GAI research very little attention has been paid to the consequences of such work.

This is true, and indeed there has been very little social sciences research on longevity that I am aware of, besides public attitudes towards longevity. Given the highly probable rise of anti-aging technologies in the near future, social science should focus its attention on modeling the impacts of longevity on social systems, political systems, and so on. 

I do not see how this would not result in a tiered society where at least at first those with access to longevity will be the wealthy and resourceful and thus able to tyrannise those that dont.

Distributional justice is a very common objection to life extension that has been addressed at length by many in the field. This article and this site do a good job at laying out the arguments, and David Wood who I recently interviewed discusses this point, as he does in great depth in his book, The Abolition of Aging. 

I'll summarise some of the responses to distributional justice (i.e. 'only for the rich') arguments below: 

• Anti-aging therapies are in principle no different from existing medical treatments such as anti-viral or anti-cancer therapies. For example, there is little philosophically difference between a cancer therapy (e.g. molecules that kill cancer cells) to extend healthy lifespan and a senolytic drug (e.g. molecules that kill senescent cells) to extend healthy lifespan. In the same way that few would object to the development of better cancer therapies today (e.g. CAR T-cell therapies) that only the rich can afford (and are not, for example, currently available to people in Africa), few should object to anti-aging drugs that extend healthy lifespan, even if only the rich can initially afford them too. Basically, many lifesaving medical interventions are initially expensive, and therefore only available to the rich, but this isn't a reason to inhibit research. An additional point: if you support current medical research - which functions essentially to extend healthy lifespan, you should also support anti-aging, which also aims to extend healthy lifespan, though through prevention rather than cures. The only difference between the two is the approach, and the likely effectiveness - anti-aging is likely to be more effective at accomplishing the goal. Hence, we should be more enthusiastic about this approach, if anything.
• Therapies are unlikely to stay expensive for long. When patents expire after 10-20 years, drugs usually become ridiculously cheap, and so any distributional inequality is unlikely to last long. Metformin, a life-saving diabetes drug (that is also being studied for its anti-aging properties) is a good example - it was initially expensive but the price has now plummeted to 31 cents per tablet in 2013. There are numerous economic forces that will drive low prices - governments are incentivised to subsidise these therapies, to populations healthy and stave off the diseases of old age that cost healthcare systems trillions of dollars worldwide annually (e.g. dementia alone costs over $1 trillion), which is otherwise set to grow due to an aging population. Insurance companies will similarly be incentivized to subside these therapies, to keep their clients healthier and able to avoid the chronic diseases of old age for longer. A good analogy is car sales - cars used to be too expensive for most people but are now ubiquitous and largely affordable. Since the market size for anti-aging therapies (i.e. all humans on Earth) is huge, as it is for cars, we would expect the huge demand to result in lower prices. Food technology is another, more recent example. In 2013 the first lab-grown burger was $325,000, and two years later the cost fell to $12. 
• Not developing anti-aging technology doesn't help the poor. Anti-aging technologies only available for the rich would not help the poor, but not having these technologies available to the rich - that is, allowing the rich to age and die like the rest of us - also wouldn't help the poor. What matters is not only that the gap between rich and poor is closed, but also how it is closed. For example, those in Western countries could give up all their comforts and wealth to be economically equal to the lowest African countries. But this is not the goal - the goal is to bring the African countries up in wealth, not bring economically prosperous nations down. The same applies to anti-aging: the goal is to bring everyone's healthspans up (even if it means there will exist some inequality, initially), not keep everyone's healthspans down. 

There are then of course a myriad of psychological/existential implications which someone like Scott Alexander would have a field day with. How can we give our time meaning if we have an unlimited amount of it? What about personal relationships? Or vocational callings not to speak of parenthood or the environmental costs. Finally the arc of human life has been argued to have evolutionary purpose, our time is limited for good reason it is in a way the ultimate motivator to do good and build. Why would anyone want to take that away?

This alludes to the 'death brings meaning to life' and 'boredom' arguments - i.e. that we need death in order to achieve some  kind of meaning and psychological stability in our lives. 

But the argument, upon closer inspection, is utterly absurd, as this article explains. Life gives meaning to life, not death. The meaning of life is whatever you want it to be, and is determined while you are alive to think, reflect, and plan - not when you are dead. When lifespans were extended from 40 years to 80 years, did people psychologically and existentially cripple at the newfound time on their hands? No, they found new ways to use the time. Humans are incredibly adaptable and will find new ways to spend the time. We have no reason to think this will change if lifespans are extended by 1 year, or 1000 years. Half of workers over 50 engage in 3 or more careers, and a longer lifespan simply allows more time to start new careers, pursue passions, spend time with loved ones and anything else that the person wants to do. 

'Death brings meaning to life' is a nonsensical argument for death is really just another facet of the naturalistic fallacy coupled with the lazy conservatism inherent in human nature.