Andrew Steele
@statto
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Scientist (physicist-turned-biologist) / Writer (https://t.co/b7cDbmWGKN) / Presenter (https://t.co/ChpWwP9GqY) / Campaigner / Mastodon, Bluesky, etc: https://t.co/3sPVSia1eE
Berlin, DE
Joined May 2007
Ageless: The new science of getting older without getting old is out in paperback!. ‘A tour de force of anti-ageing science’ – @thetimes.‘A fascinating look at how scientists are working to treat the aging process itself’ – @drsanjaygupta. Buy a copy at
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RT @kubofhromoslav: @statto @DavidMJourno The difference between percentage of causes of mortality and percentage of research funding to ad….
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Read the full piece here: Thanks to David for a great interview over a couple of longevity-friendly alcohol-free beers (and some less longevity-friendly parmesan chips…) in Berlin. :).
sciencebusiness.net
Last year, researchers published an analysis that made grim reading for anyone hoping to live a much longer, healthier life this century. Human life expectancy has all but hit a wall, it argued....
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‘Since 2021, six projects [on ageing] received €23 million, just 0.08% of Horizon Europe’s €27.9 billion budget. For comparison, oncology has received €193 million, and the EU has launched an entire mission to tackle cancer.’. Essential reading for Europeans by @DavidMJourno:
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Lithium has been on the longevity radar for a while given observational results that show where there’s more in the water, people live longer. Should we all be microdosing Li?!.
New @Nature .The possibility that lithium deficiency is a driver of Alzheimer's disease. Experimental model shows Li depletion impedes amyloid clearance, and repletion in humans could be achieved with low doses.
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Fascinating thread, and kinda wild but also janky, fragile and weird that we can modify these models’ behaviours just by telling them how to behave using English!.
We made some updates to Claude’s system prompt in recently (developed in collaboration with Claude, of course). They aren’t set in stone and may be updated, but I’ll go through the current version of each and the reason behind it in this thread 🧵.
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This post, from a thread on Claude’s new ‘system prompt’ (the preamble hidden from users given to help the model give good answers), corroborates my theory about knowledgeable user bias (see thread above for details):
Claude sometimes gets a bit too excited and positive about theories people share with it, and this part gives it permission to be more even-handed and critical of what people share. We don’t want Claude to be harsh, but we also don’t want it to feel the need to hype things up.
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RT @jpsenescence: "It is highly unethical to stop aging" - reviewer commenting on one of my grant applications. The grant focused on cellu….
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Great thread from Karl here on the hype around the ‘Ozempic reverses aging’ study. The fact it was in HIV patients already makes it more proof-of-concept than slam-dunk, but eg I hadn’t noticed that 33% of study participants were smokers!.
All the talk of semaglutide (ozempic) slowing or reversing aging is too exaggerated for the tiny bit of only mildly interesting data reported in a recent preprint. Quick points to keep in mind:.
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Just wild amounts of money!
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RT @SamuelDickenUK: 🚨❗ Results of the FIRST EVER trial comparing ultra-processed food (UPF) and minimally-processed food (MPF) diets follow….
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Is the number of times you dunk on biomarkers a biomarker of anything, I wonder?
@statto His page is filled with "biomarkers =/= age"×10 😆 . While I admire his skepticism of hype, I haven't heard anyone (credible) say biomarkers are a perfect measure. They are an ever evolving metric that 𝘤𝘢𝘯 be useful. 🤷♂️
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Could someone please explain to charles that you should watch things before reflexively dunking on them?
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And a question:
To all those who decry Ozempic etc because ‘obesity is a choice’…would you take it if it slowed down aging? Or is aging a choice too?. (assume either Ozempic is deemed to have a tolerable side-effect profile for longevity, or a future weight-loss drug is better.).
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What if the reason was because it allowed you (BMI = 23, not obese, good muscle mass) to get to a BMI of 20, which turned out to be optimal for longevity and, try as you might, you just couldn’t shed those last few pounds?.
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To all those who decry Ozempic etc because ‘obesity is a choice’…would you take it if it slowed down aging? Or is aging a choice too?. (assume either Ozempic is deemed to have a tolerable side-effect profile for longevity, or a future weight-loss drug is better.).
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More detail on this:
Could Ozempic slow down aging?!. A new study suggests yes—but, while they’re exciting preliminary results, there are a few caveats too. New Scientist asked me to send in a comment for their podcast—this is the full, uncut version of what I said!
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Could Ozempic slow down aging?!. A new study suggests yes—but, while they’re exciting preliminary results, there are a few caveats too. New Scientist asked me to send in a comment for their podcast—this is the full, uncut version of what I said!
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Depressing number of responses to this saying ‘it is a choice’ from people who have clearly never tried to lose weight.
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RT @cremieuxrecueil: This is true. The former CEO of Novo Nordisk actually said that addressing obesity should be done through a "radical….
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‘Developing GLP-1 drugs was hard but didn't require alien-level tech. One of the biggest barriers was cultural: to many, obesity was a choice rather than a disease.’. Great post from @fedichev on the parallels between Ozempic etc and longevity medicines:.
We are witnessing a revolution: GLP-1 drugs (like Ozempic, Wegovy, and related semaglutides) are storming the markets, generating over $40 billion in annual sales for Novo Nordisk alone in 2024, with the broader GLP-1 market projected to exceed $50 billion by 2025 as demand
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