While I agree short lived species are "behind" us in terms of
evolving *solutions* to aging, aging itself is a fairly universal
process (grey hair, reduced libido, organ failure, etc.) and so
treatments or methods that work in short lived species would seem
to be the first place to start in developing treatments for long
lived species such as humans.
Relatively sudden death syndromes, such as you point out in male
marsupial mice, or the more common example of salmon, are probably
stress induced death, perhaps with some of the characteristics of
aging. They would be less likely to be good models in which to test
aging interventions.
I'd be in line for experimental procedures that have been demonstrated
to extend the lifespan of mice to 5+ years. Even CR can't manage that
accomplishment.
Robert
On Fri, 24 Mar 2000, Joao Pedro de Magalhaes wrote:
> True but I don't think you can locate the causes of human aging in
> short-lived species. Of course you can use them as transgenics to
> investigate human genes and investigate the basic metabolic processes than
> can fail during aging; but I believe that to understand human aging you
> can't base your research on short-lived species for the simple reason that,
> based on evolutionary theory, they age for different causes than us
> (although some metabolic pathways or genes might be common but following
> that reasoning you can also study bacteria since the basic processes of life
> are common to all organisms except virus). To put it simple: Why learn from
> species that are behind us in the race for immortality.
>
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