526 replies to this topic

[AgeVivo]

my mice are still looking very good, active and healthy. I started when they got 18 months old and in one week they will be 28 month old. Here are some pictures (before and during feed), I took more as well as videos, will post them later
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[YOLF]

They are looking good!

[niner]

I started when they got 18 months old and in one week they will be 28 month old.

I'm really glad you're doing this, AgeVivo, because at this point, your mouse experiment is the closest thing we have to a replication attempt. As I recall, typical lifespans for mice like this were about 2 years; am I remembering that correctly? How old do you think these mice would need to be in order to be considered an example of anomalous longevity?

[YOLF]

I'm waiting til months 36-40.

Is there any chance you could start giving them extra exercise? Leaving them to swim for an increasing time in a bowl of warm water or something to see if they get stronger or healthier faster? I'd like to know if their behavior is less active than it could be due to adjusting to old age. Maybe they are or could be better than we recognize but are stuck in old, old age behavior.

[stephen_b]

Is there any chance you could start giving them extra exercise?

It's a little late to change the experiment at this stage of the game.

[Kevnzworld]

Most websites list the life expectancy for domestic pet mice at 1.5-2 years.. The control mice in Spindlers NIA ITP study lived an average of
786 days for males, and 866 for females. The reference lifespan for these mice are 831 and 836 days. No control mouse lived past day 891. AgeVivo's two mice are approaching 840 days.
AgeVivo's mice are domestic pet mice Spindlers were University of Michigan heterogeneous mice. I would think the expected lifespans would be similar.
Unfortunately AgeVivo's mice didn't begin treatment until they were senior citizens.

[motorcitykid]

Most websites list the life expectancy for domestic pet mice at 1.5-2 years.. The control mice in Spindlers NIA ITP study lived an average of
786 days for males, and 866 for females. The reference lifespan for these mice are 831 and 836 days. No control mouse lived past day 891. AgeVivo's two mice are approaching 840 days.
AgeVivo's mice are domestic pet mice Spindlers were University of Michigan heterogeneous mice. I would think the expected lifespans would be similar.
Unfortunately AgeVivo's mice didn't begin treatment until they were senior citizens.

Interesting piece of information Kevnzwrld. This will make watching AgeVivo's mice for the next few months like watching the final countdown on American Idol.

Edited by motorcitykid, 25 March 2013 - 03:22 PM.

[niner]

Unfortunately AgeVivo's mice didn't begin treatment until they were senior citizens.

Not so unfortunate, if we see a significant life extension. That would actually be a really nice result, given that most of us aren't exactly teenagers. The downside of the late-life start is that if the mice have a 'normal' lifespan, we can't really say anything about what would happen if they were started earlier in life.

[Mind]

READ HERE BEFORE GETTING TOO EXCITED.

An unfortunately huge amount of pro-supplement evidence is based on bad mouse experiments. 1,110 days (37 months) is what one should expect from a well-taken care-of lab mouse. With a little extra effort (no supplements) your lab mouse could top out around 1,500 days (50 months). The first winner of the Methuselah Mouse prize took good care of his mouse and took home the prize - no supplements - no biotech - just good care. If AgeVivo's mice go past 37 months, I will find it mildly interesting and somewhat positive for C60oo. If they make it past 50 months, I will be a little more excited.

Of course, being pet store mice does introduce some variability, I know.

Keep up the great work AgeVivo!

[Kevnzworld]

READ HERE BEFORE GETTING TOO EXCITED.

An unfortunately huge amount of pro-supplement evidence is based on bad mouse experiments. 1,110 days (37 months) is what one should expect from a well-taken care-of lab mouse. With a little extra effort (no supplements) your lab mouse could top out around 1,500 days (50 months). The first winner of the Methuselah Mouse prize took good care of his mouse and took home the prize - no supplements - no biotech - just good care. If AgeVivo's mice go past 37 months, I will find it mildly interesting and somewhat positive for C60oo. If they make it past 50 months, I will be a little more excited.

Of course, being pet store mice does introduce some variability, I know.

Keep up the great work AgeVivo!

OK. Here is a quote from MR
" A normal, healthy, well-husbanded, non-genetically-fucked-up mouse (which will on av'g live ~900 days at maximum (tenth-decile survivorship) 1100 d, as is routine in the standard control groups in studies run by people who know what they're doing (Spindler, Weindruch, Miller, etc). But in report after report of 'life extension' in mice, NONE of the animals eeven live THIS long (or at best, the INTERVENTION group does)."
He quotes Spindler as a guy that "knows what he's doing ". Here is the control lifespan table from Spindler's NIA ITP study, not an " interpretation" of it. This is across all three testing sites. If you take out the worst performing group from UT, you are at around 860 days, which is what UM says is the average lifespan of UM-HET3 mice.
http://onlinelibrary...07.00311.x/full

Table 1. Median survival values for male and female control mice
Site Sex Median ± standard error (n)
TJL F 858 ± 7 (93)
UM F 909 ± 4 (86)
UT F 876 ± 4 (96)
TJL M 781 ± 7 (125)
UM M 876 ± 8 (106)
UT M 739 ± 7 (119)

Regarding the Methuselah foundation mice that Mind referenced,..these often are not your standard domestic pet mouse, or lab heterogeneous control mouse. They can be and are genetically modified.
Quote ". The longevity prize allows any type of intervention, including breeding and genetic engineering; only a single mouse has to be presented. As of 2009, the record holder is a mouse whose growth hormone receptor had been genetically knocked out; it lived for 1819 days (almost 5 years).[10".
http://en.wikipedia....elah_Foundation

There are no controls in AgeVivo's experiment, we do know that he leaves them for a week or two at a time when traveling . We do know they are well cared for. We know the intervention was started relatively late in the mice lives.
It's not fair to compare his two average pet mice to ones in the tenth quartile of surviving control mice, or mice bred or modified to be submitted for a Methuselah foundation prize.
Im not going to hazard a guess as to how many days would qualify as being significant, lets see what happens!

Edited by Kevnzworld, 25 March 2013 - 07:12 PM.

[Iporuru]

Unfortunately AgeVivo's mice didn't begin treatment until they were senior citizens.

Not so unfortunate, if we see a significant life extension. That would actually be a really nice result, given that most of us aren't exactly teenagers. The downside of the late-life start is that if the mice have a 'normal' lifespan, we can't really say anything about what would happen if they were started earlier in life.

That would actually be a really mice result

[AgeVivo]

my mice are still looking very good. the black one starts to have its back slightly curved in the middle, which indicates aging but in the mice I had before I would have seen this at a much earlier age (perhaps 6 months earlier I would say), and the one with a white belly tends to be quite fat, but they are still looking in really good health. they jump and climb less than before but they sometimes still do some difficult tasks (more as if they were "wise"), and they have long and thick hair compared to the mice I used to have in labs. they scratch themselves from time to time during a few seconds, indicating that they may be itchy but nothing troublesome (this is very frequent in old b6 mice and old b6 mice frequently scratch themseleves to blood; here again it is not a specific strain)).

here are pictures of them, before and during feeding:
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[sunshinefrost]

How old are they ? Sorry, cant read the whole thread

[YOLF]

How old are they ? Sorry, cant read the whole thread

28 months

[AgeVivo]

For their 10th month of treatment, and 28 month birthday, I have compiled a video of my mice yesterday: http://agevivo.com/l...mice_310313.wmv

In the video
- we briefly see them eat (c60oo: happy Easter!)
- we see them playing with an upside down tool (they are intrigued)
- we see them climb (I had put a small piece of chocolate on the top of the cage, they wanted to reach it) and play with the wheel

Edited by AgeVivo, 01 April 2013 - 09:14 PM.

[YOLF]

They look pretty healthy and active. Was the video taken recently? I don't see the whiter mouse that died in it, so I'm thinking it's somewhat recent?

[free10]

For their 10th month of treatment, and 28 month birthday, I have compiled a video of my mice yesterday: http://agevivo.com/l...mice_310313.wmv

In the video
- we briefly see them eat (c60oo: happy Easter!)
- we see them playing with an upside down tool (they are intrigued)
- we see them climb (I had put a small piece of chocolate on the top of the cage, they wanted to reach it) and play with the wheel

Thanks for the video they seem to be enjoying Easter.

[AgeVivo]

They look pretty healthy and active. Was the video taken recently? I don't see the whiter mouse that died in it, so I'm thinking it's somewhat recent?

yes of course. I took these 4 pieces of video on Sunday morning (so March 31th 2013) and yesterday I've put them together in one online video

[YOLF]

Wow! They look great and are very active! It's a very positive indicator for me. Though I'm not all that familiar with rodent lifestyles. How would you rate their activity levels in the video? I was thinking the vids could have been taken much earlier. Does anyone have some healthy old mice not on C60 to compare with?

Some youtube videos I found:

3 year old mouse -


96 years old (in mouse years)


That's all I could find for old/mature mice. It would be nice to see more so have more to compare with. How could we run a youtube campaign to get more videos of old rodents?

[AgeVivo]

>> I was thinking the vids could have been taken much earlier.
I took many other videos. It's just that it takes time to post. Perhaps I'll do it one day. I've posted a few though on http://agevivo.com/litterature/C60/ In fact after a few weeks of treatment my mice very extraordinary active -- nothing like I've ever seen with other mice -- and then they calmed down (abruptly it seems? perhaps after they've learned that falling hurts I don't know) and slowly calmed down with time and well as are less able to do thinks like pull out (when climbing).

>> Some youtube videos I found
Do you think you would be able to see where it is from and estimate the degree of credibility of the mouse above being 3 year old and still very healthy looking?; my mice are not very different in terms of activity. And what "96 years old" meant in terms of real months. Thank you

[YOLF]

Great to hear from you again AV.

The older vids of them do show a little more activity unless they are sped up some, do they still climb upside down? I'd still say they look healthy in any case.

I'm not really sure how credible the videos I linked to are, I spent 30 minutes youtubing just for the two of them. I don't think either of them are good comparisons, they're just all I could find to compare with.

[AgeVivo]

as usual, changed cage yesterday evening and fed them with c60oo this morning.
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[AgeVivo]

hello, the black-only mouse scratches itself much at one place. A very frequent phenomenon in mice (at least B6 mice, the common lab strain). I'm not sure if I should do something to prevent it. Apart from that the 2 mice are still very healthy and very active (I am still very impressed). For example on the 4th picture you see that it doesn't prevent the black mouse from climbing
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PS: I notice that they are slow at eating hard bread: a trouble with their teeth perhaps? I don't know.

Edited by AgeVivo, 21 April 2013 - 10:09 AM.

[YOLF]

Looking good! Does 5 show the scratching? What's that spot of fur, is she starting to lose it?

[AgeVivo]

Absolutely, images 1 and 5 zoom on the spot where the black mouse scratches, it causes the local fur loss.

[Logic]

Can one apply a topical ointment or coconut oil without upsetting the longetivity experiment?

[YOLF]

Does the mouse smell like foot fungus there?

[Kevnzworld]

Can one apply a topical ointment or coconut oil without upsetting the longetivity experiment?

I think the mice can and should be provided veterinary care. That can include natural care like topical coconut oil. If one mouse has a dermatological condition, I don't see why it can't or shouldn't be treated.
Is B6 lab mice their strain, or are they your basic pet store mouse?

[AgeVivo]

They are basic pet store mice; actually to me they look much like b6 mice. I've worked with many ages c57bl6 mice a few years ago and many of them were scratching themselves like this at old age, in spite of good laboratory conditions. This is known as ulcerative dermatosis: http://animal.resear...dermatitis-mice I never tried treatments, The page says that treatments generally don't work and "Please consult with the OAR veterinary staff to determine the best treatment that does not interfere with your research." I am planning not to treat my mice, because in laboratories the mice undergoing lifespan tests do not receive specific veterinary care, but if you were to consult the OAR and have some interesting answer I'd be pleased to follow instructions.

Edited by AgeVivo, 22 April 2013 - 04:21 PM.

[AgeVivo]

I'm going away for 12 days (leaving my mice with day/light, food and drink) and have just treated my mice with c60oo. they are very healthy, vivid, I afraid them slightly by bringing a big light and it was slightly difficult to catch them the tail. the one that scratched itself had made the zone without hair larger y the middle of the week, and it seems it has stopped scratching since. they will be 29 month old in a few days; I'll take and post various photos and videos when they are 30 month old. As usual, here are pictures of them before changing cage and when treating them:
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