http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-24462699

Science is awesome!

With the other news of being close to allowing people to live to 150 this is good news. the last thing anyone wants is 70 years with Alzheimer's. +1 for science.


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Who'd want to live to 150?
That's about 60 years in an old folks home, having somebody else wipe your arse. And you'd have to work until 90 to pay for it.

That will mean the abolition of retirement. It will impossible to save for a long retirement with a limited career of working. Though you could probably work till 120 and then have 30 years retirement.

We still have not overcome a lot of the frailties of old age - brittle bones, wasting muscles, organs just wearing out, failing immune system. At some point, the human body will just not be viable, but technology will be around to keep it ticking over in various uncomfortable ways. At some point in your 150 life span, you'll probably wish you were just dead because it's all just too much.

TBH, I don't think anyone knows just how long the human body can be kept going for. We also have to ask if the planet can support a population which just will not die.

Hence the need for Swiss clinics to be legal in the UK.

Star Trek covered it in the The Mark of Gideon episode.

A good story that - some of the original Trek stories did some great things by looking at a possible future, and then getting Shatner to act his way through them.

It is a cure or a vaccine? From the article it seems to be used to prevent degeneration of the brain and not rebuilt the brain (which makes sense).

My grandmother is currently in the violent phase of Alzheimer and I really would much rather not become like that.

It prevents prions and bad proteins from causing brain cells to die, so it doesn't cure the problem but prevents symptoms from developing. It's like the drugs that help prevent HIV from becoming AIDS.

However, it is unknown how hereditary Alzheimer is caused so it may not work in this case.

It might also be less effective with one sex or the other. If it can reduce the numbers of Alzheimer's by say 80% then it could mean that we as a society should have less problem providing financial support for those that have family members who still get impacted by the disease.

You forgot to speculate about its effect on house prices.

If people start living to 150 you can start complaining about the "bank of great-great-grandad."