Care Cost Driven Health Medicine Money Much Real Reason So

Our emotions allow us to ignore some threats as we grow overly concerned with others

According to a new WHO report, the leading killers worldwide by 2030 will be AIDS, heart disease and -- surprisingly -- depression

A noteworthy paper via PubMed: "Females live longer than males in many mammalian species, including humans. This natural phenomenon can be explained on the basis of the mitochondrial theory of aging. Mitochondria are a major source of free radicals in cells. Mitochondria from female rats generate half the amount of hydrogen peroxide than those of males ... the oxidative damage of mitochondrial DNA is fourfold higher in males than in females. Ovariectomy abolishes the gender differences between males and females and estrogen replacement rescues the effect of ovariectomy. The challenge for the future is to find molecules that have the beneficial effects of estradiol, but without its feminizing effects. Phytoestrogens or phytoestrogen-related molecules may be good candidates to meet this challenge." So estrogen modulates the damaging free radical output of mitochondria. Most interesting.

View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&list_uids=17127355
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The Economist discusses transhumanism and healthy life extension: "transhumanists - a loose coalition of scientists, technologists and thinkers who seek opportunities to enhance the human condition - see change as desirable. ... There is no greater goal for transhumanism than the conquest of death. ... Ray Kurzweil, an American inventor and author, and Aubrey de Grey, a gerontologist and chairman of the Methuselah Foundation, argue optimistically that immortality may become achievable for people who are alive today. ... Back in 1928, an American demographer, Louis Dublin, calculated that the upper limit on average life expectancy would be 64.8 years, a daring figure at the time, with American life expectancy then just 57 years. But now his figure looks timid, given that life expectancy for women in Okinawa, Japan, has passed 85.3 years, 20 years more than Dublin claimed possible. Also looking timid are the scientists who later predicted that life expectancy would nowhere pass 78 years (in 1952), 79 years (1980) and 82.5 years (1984)."

View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.economist.com/theworldin/science/displayStory.cfm?story_id=8134135
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From CNN, more from the sort of folk who are thinking more sharply about trends in medical science: "Imagine a world with no cancer, Alzheimer's disease or diabetes, where people routinely live to be 140 years old. Although outside conventional medical opinion, that world may be just a couple of decades away ... advances in information technology, biotechnology, neuroscience, and nanotechnology will allow for radical advances in medicine and the treatment of diseases. ... Once medicine becomes boldly proactive, then you're talking about eliminating 70, 80 percent of diseases. We're just on the edge of this. It's going to happen very shortly ... the baby boomer generation is the driving force behind advances in medicine. Eyeing the boomer's wealth, companies from across the medical spectrum are pouring money into drugs and technologies of all kinds that will help people live longer lives ... Whether they will succeed in increasing the human life span appears to be an open question." But one that will certainly be answered in the negative if we don't step up and make the future we wish to live in.

View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/11/27/long.life/
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