526 replies to this topic

[1todd960]

Maybe we can get a Kickstarter project going for a new C60 mouse study. I can't run it but I would contribute.

This would be the thing to do. I am also willing to support this project. This time it should be the experiment with larger number of animals (5 for example) and the new experiment must have control group included (another 5 animals for example). Plus using the known inbreed strain of mice would allow us to have benchmark maximum lifespan to compare our results.

Maybe we can also distribute the project between many contributors from one round of financing. As niner stated before one of the main questions arising from AgeVivo’s experiment is the question, whether the effect of C60 in EVOO on lifespan extension is dependent on the age of animals when dosing is started. All in all:

a) First study of 10 animals (control = 5 and experimental group = 5 animals) could star dosing when animals are in first third of their life according to the average lifespan of strain of mice used;

b) second study of 10 animals (control = 5 and experimental group = 5 animals) could star dosing when animals are in second third of their life according to the average lifespan of strain of mice used;

c) third study of 10 animals (control = 5 and experimental group = 5 animals) could star dosing when animals are in last third of their life according to the average lifespan of strain of mice used.

I think it would be a good idea to have that fourth control group not taking any C60 for comparison.

[Turnbuckle]

Another consideration is the age of the oil. The Baati rats were given the oil for six months only, but these mice were given it much longer, and toward the end they seemed to age rapidly. It's known that C60 oxidizes in time and it's possible that this batch of oil transformed from an antioxidant into a prooxidant.

[AgeVivo]

Oh oh. Bad news. I found my last mouse dead. It has died during the day, probably this afternoon. I had no sign that it would be imminent or in the coming month, only that she was getting old. No blood on her, no special obvious thing from outside; I hope to discover what has killed her, but obviously she probably had a frailty somewhere (a stroke, whatever)

I am going to contact the authors see if we could do the necrospy together; if we could film it; I wll find the closed thread where I had put images of my last necropsy and will put there pictures of my last mouse found dead today. I am going to look for the last pieces of videos I have and post them here to indicate how she was so far.

All in all, this makes me wonder if the somewhat clear healthspan extension I have seen could come from food removal one night per week, and perhaps olive oil. I do not think at all that what I get is compatible with a 90% lifespan extension: perhaps not the right conditions (mice instead of rats, started at old age instead of middle age, c60oo till end of life hmm.. (I have some c60oo, if someone knows how to test its antioxydant properties I can send you some), not the same food etc.) or something went wrong in the original study, or... I don't know.

Edited by AgeVivo, 30 July 2013 - 05:30 PM.

[trying2survive]

Oh crap, I had high hopes for this little one.

[MacD]

Sorry for the loss of the last mouse.


I'm rather hoping that the necropsy will show the mice did not die of "old age", but rather something else (that is also not cell related).


I also hope that the potency of the c60oo you have Agevivo can be proven to have lost all of its anti-oxidant properties.



Do you have a time planned for the necropsy? I am sure there are many eager people, like myself, who are supporting you and the cause to find the reasons why your mice passed away.

[niner]

I'm very sorry to hear this. AgeVivo, as I recall, you got the c60-oo from Prof. Moussa, and it was part of the original batch that they used. Am I remembering this correctly? If so, it brings up a suspicion that I've had about my own oil, regarding the shelf life. What if c60-oo doesn't really last very long under typical home storage conditions?

[AgeVivo]

I'm very sorry to hear this. AgeVivo, as I recall, you got the c60-oo from Prof. Moussa, and it was part of the original batch that they used. Am I remembering this correctly? If so, it brings up a suspicion that I've had about my own oil, regarding the shelf life. What if c60-oo doesn't really last very long under typical home storage conditions?

I got it from Tarek Baati and Prof Moussa indeed, but they made batches for me (I'll look for the dates of the batches) so it seems unlikely to me but I will ask them what they think of that hypothesis.

[YOLF]

I wonder if anyone is trying to replicate the Baati experiment. And if not why?
It's been well over a year now.
If C60OO really has the life extension potential that Baati's results imply one would think that numerous other studies would be in process by now.

Not to mention it could also solve a good deal of our global healthcare problems.

[YOLF]

Sorry for the loss AV!

There is a Goodwill store near me that sells just used medical equipment. Maybe I could get them to cut us a deal on something that we could use to set stuff? It would have to wait about a month though as I'll be pretty busy for the next 3 weeks.

[Andey]

It looks strange that both mouse have died almost synchronously and without any signs of not well being. Could it be some external factor like food poison or infection ?

[MacD]

It looks strange that both mouse have died almost synchronously and without any signs of not well being. Could it be some external factor like food poison or infection ?

I was thinking the same thing, which is why the necropsy is so important.

I have a feeling the last mouse might simply have 'given up' on life due to the social isolation and seeing his/her companions die.


Edit - It might even be due to c60oo toxicity wbere Agevivos batch has been left so long and it has turned pro-oxidant. If this is the case, then some people on here are also probably toxicating themselves.

The autopsy is of utmost importance.

Edited by MacD, 31 July 2013 - 10:34 AM.

[ambivalent]

It is probably worth tempering our sense of coincidence with the knowledge that in human terms these mice died several months apart at a very old age, around a year in fact. It may well not be a coincidence and hopefully there is such an explanation, it certainly feels like it (!), but no doubt our experience of time seduces that sense of coincidence more readily than it should. Thanks for all you work AV!

[niner]

Baati's rats lived a long time, but then they all died in rapid succession. It was really unusual, compared to the typical survival curve. AV's last two mice also followed this pattern, although n=2 is a pretty small number. Is this a case of squaring of the mortality curve, or did it have something to do with the cage getting bounced on the floor a few weeks ago, followed by a vacation? I agree that a necropsy for both animals is important. I'm wondering about the sort of lifespan we'd have seen if there had been a control group. The mouse that died early from a tumor was 22.3 months old, if I have the dates right. The oldest mouse, at 32 m, exceeded the age of the first mouse by 43%. Obviously we don't have the number of mice nor a control group for this to be very meaningful, but for petshop mice in home conditions, 22.3 months is a pretty typical lifespan, as I recall. It's possible that we are looking at the kind of results we should expect given that the dosing was started at a fairly old age (18 m). Unfortunately, the experimental design required a spectacular result in order to serve as a convincing replication of Baati. Without more solid knowledge about the strain-specific lifespan for mice in these conditions, it's hard to conclude much at all.

[free10]

Baati's rats lived a long time, but then they all died in rapid succession. It was really unusual, compared to the typical survival curve. AV's last two mice also followed this pattern, although n=2 is a pretty small number. Is this a case of squaring of the mortality curve, or did it have something to do with the cage getting bounced on the floor a few weeks ago, followed by a vacation? I agree that a necropsy for both animals is important. I'm wondering about the sort of lifespan we'd have seen if there had been a control group. The mouse that died early from a tumor was 22.3 months old, if I have the dates right. The oldest mouse, at 32 m, exceeded the age of the first mouse by 43%. Obviously we don't have the number of mice nor a control group for this to be very meaningful, but for petshop mice in home conditions, 22.3 months is a pretty typical lifespan, as I recall. It's possible that we are looking at the kind of results we should expect given that the dosing was started at a fairly old age (18 m). Unfortunately, the experimental design required a spectacular result in order to serve as a convincing replication of Baati. Without more solid knowledge about the strain-specific lifespan for mice in these conditions, it's hard to conclude much at all.

We might want to remember, in the spirit of accurate history, that the last two of Baati's rats were killed to end the study and did not die off naturally. I agree the bounced cage seems to be involved. Be that as it may we all make mistakes and it was a good and valiant effort.

There may be a larger lesson to all this and that is even if we stayed young and immortal and no longer had to deal with any diseases sooner or later we would still die from our cages bouncing a little too hard off the floor, or wall, or asteroid.

[niner]

We might want to remember, in the spirit of accurate history, that the last two of Baati's rats were killed to end the study and did not die off naturally. I agree the bounced cage seems to be involved. Be that as it may we all make mistakes and it was a good and valiant effort.

There may be a larger lesson to all this and that is even if we stayed young and immortal and no longer had to deal with any diseases sooner or later we would still die from our cages bouncing a little too hard off the floor, or wall, or asteroid.

Yes, that's true. My understanding is that they were close to death when they were sacrificed, so even if they had lived a few more weeks or months, the curve still would have been remarkably square, relative to a normal curve. I didn't mean to imply that this was not a terrific effort- it's more than anyone else has done, not just within the confines of Longecity, but even in the scientific community, as far as anyone knows. AV has been in touch with Prof. Moussa, and so far no one else has told him that they are attempting anything like a replication, which Moussa would very much like to see. I only brought up the accident because it's possible it may have had an effect on lifespan.

Old timers here know that this organization used to be called the Immortality Institute. The popular conception of the word "immortality" is a being that can't be killed, while the biological definition is a being that doesn't age. This led to a lot of belief out in the world that we were a bunch of crazy people. We changed our name so that we wouldn't be perceived as nuts. Someone coined the term "indefinite life extension" as a way to get the idea across that you can still die, just not from aging. That term leaked into the popular culture in a dystopic novel by Gary Shteyngart, where the protagonist's job was being a salesman for an "indefinite life extension" company.

[Turnbuckle]

Baati's rats lived a long time, but then they all died in rapid succession. It was really unusual, compared to the typical survival curve. AV's last two mice also followed this pattern, although n=2 is a pretty small number.

N=3, and they didn't all die at the same time. With such a small number and with no controls, nothing can be made of this.

[ambivalent]

It is not a rationale born of weak-mindedness that individuals are selecting out the mouse that died of a tumour when considering the longevity aspect of this study - it is especially pertinent when considering the Baati study appears cancer preventive. Would it seem reasonable, if when trying to replicate the Baati study for older rodents, to purposefully include one that already has cancer (particularly with these small numbers)? That would be senseless. It seems pretty likely it did already have a tumour and to take a view on the numbers without it the outlier, is sensible. And even including it, when two out of the three rodents live well beyond the expectations of a typical sample of pet shop mice, living too, well beyond the owners normal pet life-expectancy, then the results are very significant. The object of measurement is to reduce uncertainty. This experiment has reduced the uncertainty of c60's life extending properties: as every measurement would regardless of the outcome. It has reduced uncertainty over toxicity, over its cancer curative properties. It has increased the likeihood that c60 is life-extending given that two of these mice lived for a time well outside the normal expectation. It has not given the definitive, rubber stamping endorsment of the Baati study hoped for, or simply the aspired reduction in uncertainty, but it should serve to mittigate the belief that there was something corrupting the original study in some way. AVs study could have been fluked without c60: without Baati a Bayesian approach would lead one to weight a fluke heavily; but with Baati the odds are strongly in favour that AVs outliers were c60 generated.

Edited by ambivalent, 02 August 2013 - 02:22 PM.

[ambivalent]

The best way I heard life-extending research being sold was from the interviewer at the end of the Cynthia Kenyon's TED talk, where he described the research as looking to 'extend human youthspan'. It seems, at least to me, that there is already an extension in the psychological youthspan of the population - our integrated and technologically advancing world forces us to keep learning and adapting at an ever faster pace. The increased tension between the psychological need to stay younger and the bodies inability to oblige will attempt to be resolved though this research once, I hope, a critical level of belief is reached within society that it can happen and these embedded coping mechanisms for aging are overcome.

[clairvoyant]

Baati's rats lived a long time, but then they all died in rapid succession. It was really unusual, compared to the typical survival curve. AV's last two mice also followed this pattern, although n=2 is a pretty small number. Is this a case of squaring of the mortality curve, or did it have something to do with the cage getting bounced on the floor a few weeks ago, followed by a vacation? I agree that a necropsy for both animals is important. I'm wondering about the sort of lifespan we'd have seen if there had been a control group. The mouse that died early from a tumor was 22.3 months old, if I have the dates right. The oldest mouse, at 32 m, exceeded the age of the first mouse by 43%. Obviously we don't have the number of mice nor a control group for this to be very meaningful, but for petshop mice in home conditions, 22.3 months is a pretty typical lifespan, as I recall. It's possible that we are looking at the kind of results we should expect given that the dosing was started at a fairly old age (18 m). Unfortunately, the experimental design required a spectacular result in order to serve as a convincing replication of Baati. Without more solid knowledge about the strain-specific lifespan for mice in these conditions, it's hard to conclude much at all.

I would say that not only mice and rats on C60 have a squaring of mortality curve but also rats on SkQ (Skulachev ions, another mitochondrial antioxidant) do. Also, the three groups of animals died looking not too old for dieing. This experiment is not in vain. What is the reason for this phenomenon?

[YOLF]

We might want to remember, in the spirit of accurate history, that the last two of Baati's rats were killed to end the study and did not die off naturally. I agree the bounced cage seems to be involved. Be that as it may we all make mistakes and it was a good and valiant effort.

There may be a larger lesson to all this and that is even if we stayed young and immortal and no longer had to deal with any diseases sooner or later we would still die from our cages bouncing a little too hard off the floor, or wall, or asteroid.

Yes, that's true. My understanding is that they were close to death when they were sacrificed, so even if they had lived a few more weeks or months, the curve still would have been remarkably square, relative to a normal curve. I didn't mean to imply that this was not a terrific effort- it's more than anyone else has done, not just within the confines of Longecity, but even in the scientific community, as far as anyone knows. AV has been in touch with Prof. Moussa, and so far no one else has told him that they are attempting anything like a replication, which Moussa would very much like to see. I only brought up the accident because it's possible it may have had an effect on lifespan.

Old timers here know that this organization used to be called the Immortality Institute. The popular conception of the word "immortality" is a being that can't be killed, while the biological definition is a being that doesn't age. This led to a lot of belief out in the world that we were a bunch of crazy people. We changed our name so that we wouldn't be perceived as nuts. Someone coined the term "indefinite life extension" as a way to get the idea across that you can still die, just not from aging. That term leaked into the popular culture in a dystopic novel by Gary Shteyngart, where the protagonist's job was being a salesman for an "indefinite life extension" company.

What's the name of this book?

[Turnbuckle]

It is not a rationale born of weak-mindedness that individuals are selecting out the mouse that died of a tumour when considering the longevity aspect of this study - it is especially pertinent when considering the Baati study appears cancer preventive...

One can't just delete data points that one doesn't like with some ad hoc rationale. It's not science. It's marketing, or self-delusion. If someone had forgotten to feed it, or dropped its cage, then a case could be made, but I don't see where one can do that here since the statement that it already had cancer is just an assumption driven by wishful thinking.

[free10]

We might want to remember, in the spirit of accurate history, that the last two of Baati's rats were killed to end the study and did not die off naturally. I agree the bounced cage seems to be involved. Be that as it may we all make mistakes and it was a good and valiant effort.

There may be a larger lesson to all this and that is even if we stayed young and immortal and no longer had to deal with any diseases sooner or later we would still die from our cages bouncing a little too hard off the floor, or wall, or asteroid.

Yes, that's true. My understanding is that they were close to death when they were sacrificed, so even if they had lived a few more weeks or months, the curve still would have been remarkably square, relative to a normal curve. I didn't mean to imply that this was not a terrific effort- it's more than anyone else has done, not just within the confines of Longecity, but even in the scientific community, as far as anyone knows. AV has been in touch with Prof. Moussa, and so far no one else has told him that they are attempting anything like a replication, which Moussa would very much like to see. I only brought up the accident because it's possible it may have had an effect on lifespan.

Old timers here know that this organization used to be called the Immortality Institute. The popular conception of the word "immortality" is a being that can't be killed, while the biological definition is a being that doesn't age. This led to a lot of belief out in the world that we were a bunch of crazy people. We changed our name so that we wouldn't be perceived as nuts. Someone coined the term "indefinite life extension" as a way to get the idea across that you can still die, just not from aging. That term leaked into the popular culture in a dystopic novel by Gary Shteyngart, where the protagonist's job was being a salesman for an "indefinite life extension" company.

I go way back not here but in the culture to the days of the group or company called "Anti- Aging" who then had to change their name because they were getting flack about being against/anti old/aged people. I think they should have ignored them and kept the name and let the rest of the world catch up.

One of the funnier conversations on immortality/very long life without aging was with my mother decades back, when she asked don't you want to go and be with Jesus. My honest reply was, he is suppose to come back and I am happy waiting here for him. That of course left her with no argument. In a short letter the other night, to a girl I know, I said aging and the diseases and death that come from it will soon be optional for people. Now, if they choose aging, and diseases and death from it, who is crazier??

Speaking of book along those lines a new one came out in the last day or two over at Amazon called Telomere Timebombs. Because I know the author he sent me a preview of the book in audio or PDF form for chapter 3.

http://telomeretimeb...entary-chapter/

My view is the telomere of the mice and by a chain of evidence the DNA in their cells were protected much more than normal by the C60 so they lived longer. If correct on this they may really gain an extraordinary lifespan if started on it not long after birth.

Edited by free10, 02 August 2013 - 06:15 PM.

[ambivalent]

@TB If there was a statistic suggesting, say, 99% of rodents die within 10 weeks of getting a tumour then ignoring the data would be considered wishful thinking. At the time the opinion was expressed the mouse probably had the tumour before c60 dosing, a view uncontested, as I recall. Perhaps there are some statistics available expressing the likelihood of the mouse having cancer before dosing and so inform further on this issue.

Even so, the subset of data of mice dying cancer-free would still be useful in establishing the life-extending abilities of c60 across ages in rodents: it is essential analysis. If 100 18-month mice were trialled on c60 and 25% were dropping off at normal age from tumours and the rest were making it to the age of AV’s mice - then the numbers that would most matter, for the purpose of c60 life extension and direct with Baati comparison on the efficacy of c60 across different ages of rodents, would be those excluding the deaths from tumours - unless of course tumours were untypical in non c60 mice.

In Baati, due to the age of the rodents, it would appear c60 did not have to contest with cancer from the outset - so when testing the efficacy of c60 on life extension with older rodents ignoring the data of mice with a high likelihood of cancer at the beginning of the study is extremely prudent - it would be unscientific to include such specimens from the beginning so why would it be unscientific to exclude them after the fact? The purpose of the study was not to establish c60’s cancer curative properties, but nevertheless it has informed somewhat on this.


The experimental conditions were not ideal but they were what they were and all that was available: useful knowledge could be gained and was - we can still measure and make confident judgements without perfect conditions, particularly if the results are quite extreme. So far it appears we have had 9 rodents treated with c60: eight of them trebled or so their remaining life expectancy (6 cancer free, 2 currently unknown), one died of cancer with no life extension. Given those current statistics it is hardly wishful thinking to suggest there is a highly significant possibility the mouse that died, which was old at the start, already had the onset of cancer at the beginning of treatment.

Edited by ambivalent, 02 August 2013 - 10:47 PM.

[Turnbuckle]

@TB If there was a statistic suggesting, say, 99% of rodents die within 10 weeks of getting a tumour then ignoring the data would be considered wishful thinking. At the time the opinion was expressed the mouse probably had the tumour before c60 dosing, a view uncontested, as I recall. Perhaps there are some statistics available expressing the likelihood of the mouse having cancer before dosing and so inform further on this issue.

While I'm a proponent of C60, I think this is a lot of nonsense, and for what? Taking out this one data point doesn't change the result that nothing much was learned about longevity.

There are discussions you can find on the web and procedures for eliminating data points, like here and here, but the bottom line is that you generally need enough data points to be able to say one is anomalous. Here this is not the case.

As for wishful thinking, ask yourself if anyone would have wanted to remove this data point if it were for a control animal. And the answer is most likely no. The question wouldn't even come up.

Edited by Turnbuckle, 02 August 2013 - 11:15 PM.

[ambivalent]

If c60 does nothing to prevent the onset of tumours, then, in AVs study, we may simply have, in essence, little more than a control-rat masquerading as a c60-rat.

In Baati there were young, (very likely) cancer-free rats at the beginning and cancer-free rats at the end. It appears to be both cancer preventive and life extending. So now it is desired to see if it is cancer preventive and life-extending in older rodents and replicate in some sense the Baati study: you don’t want to start the study with rats that already have cancer (or a high likelihood of) and use the data to compare with Baati’s results.

Yes, I agree, if it were the control it wouldn’t be debated; however, what would be (is) debated is how much of c60’s life extension gain is attributable to c60’s apparent cancer preventive nature.

Given that 2 from 3 lived around 40% longer than expected AVs study undoubtedly lends weight to the belief c60 is life extending. Again, though, how much of it is due to cancer prevention?

Hopefully we will learn more soon after the necropsy.

Anyhow, I doubt we are shifting each other’s opinions, but thanks, I will look at the links.

Edited by ambivalent, 03 August 2013 - 12:23 AM.

[Turnbuckle]

Given that 2 from 3 lived around 40% longer than expected AVs study undoubtedly lends weight to the belief c60 is life extending.

If you're getting this 40% from niner, that's not what he is saying. He's saying that the oldest mouse lived 43% longer than the first mouse, and that first mouse lived more or less the typical lifespan of pet shop mice, as he recalls.

But of course, that's just a guess because pet shop mice likely have a very wide range of lifespans. I see one webpage saying most live 740-1000 days (Ron Hines DVM PhD). That would be 28.6 months, on average. The average of AV's three mice was 28.8 months. So not a lot of difference.

[ambivalent]

If you're getting this 40% from niner, that's not what he is saying. He's saying that the oldest mouse lived 43% longer than the first mouse, and that first mouse lived more or less the typical lifespan of pet shop mice, as he recalls.

But of course, that's just a guess because pet shop mice likely have a very wide range of lifespans. I see one webpage saying most live 740-1000 days (Ron Hines DVM PhD). That would be 28.6 months, on average. The average of AV's three mice was 28.8 months. So not a lot of difference.

He is saying, amongst others, pet shop mice the average lifespan is less than two years, inlcuding anecdotally from the pet shop (as I recall) and AV's experience.

[Turnbuckle]

If you're getting this 40% from niner, that's not what he is saying. He's saying that the oldest mouse lived 43% longer than the first mouse, and that first mouse lived more or less the typical lifespan of pet shop mice, as he recalls.

But of course, that's just a guess because pet shop mice likely have a very wide range of lifespans. I see one webpage saying most live 740-1000 days (Ron Hines DVM PhD). That would be 28.6 months, on average. The average of AV's three mice was 28.8 months. So not a lot of difference.

He is saying, amongst others, pet shop mice the average lifespan is less than two years, inlcuding anecdotally from the pet shop (as I recall) and AV's experience.

Okay, let's have sources, then. Ron Hines seems to have some experience, as he says he once cared for 20,000 mice.

[niner]

Here is what Dr. Hines has to say about mouse lifespan:

How Long Do Mice Live ?

Most mice have the potential to live about two years. Occasional mice will live over three years and some will die before their first birthday. Most authorities say 1.5-2 years. How long your mouse will live depends on a number of factors:

Some strains of mice just age faster than others. Among laboratory mice, strains like the NZB live less than a year, due to inherited genetic diseases, while others, like the C57 live 2.8 years.

The oldest known mouse – the 2004 Methuselah mouse - lived 1819 days. I talk about the dietary/caloric restriction that achieved this later in this article.

Some mouse colonies contain virus that shorten the lives of mice.
Since pet shops purchase feeder mice from the most inexpensive breeders, these mice are often contaminated with diseases that shorten their lives.

How you care for your mice and what you feed them has a major influence on how long they are likely to live. A wildly know fact among aging (gerontologist) scientists is that restricting caloric intake, significantly lengthens the lives of mice. So do not let your mice get as chubby as the one at the top of this page.

This suggests that there is a broad range of possible lifespans of petshop mice. That underscores the value of using a pathogen-free lab mouse of a known strain, if you can obtain them. AV was not able to get lab animals. The wider the variation in lifespan, the more animals you need in order to get decent statistical power. If Hines' estimate of 740-1000 days was based on the longest you might expect a petshop mouse to live, then two of AV's mice made it that far, which is pretty good, but we don't have the statistical power we need to "do science". Most of us are comfortable with excluding the mouse with the tumor. Since cancer is a disease that usually a long time course, it is entirely reasonable to assume the animal was sick at the start of the experiment.

[ambivalent]

It makes sense to sample from your source i.e. the pet shop. They are likely to use similar (biassed strains) - though their testimony may be anecdotal - they'd have to be very wrong to be that far out. AV's average husbandry is much lower. There are many sources on the net indicating that 3 years is rare, but typically they live up to 2 years. I'd rather source many independent experiences than one expert on the net claiming the average to be a much higher figure. Does he use a particular breed have exceptional husbandry? Just go to a mouse forum and ask if 2 out of 3 at 2.75 years is untypical.

Edited by ambivalent, 03 August 2013 - 12:54 PM.