From: Twink (neptune@mars.superlink.net)
Date: Sun Jan 04 1998 - 09:17:07 MST
At 03:58 PM 1/4/98 +0100, Anders Sandberg <asa@nada.kth.se> wrote:
>Sounds like a great idea. In the books on calory restriction there are
>some suggestions tests for biomarkers of aging, but a good testing
>device would likely need to both measure the chemical composition of
>the blood and macroscopic properties like lung capacity and overall
>stamina - it would quickly turn into a rather big and baroque device
>with lots of hoses, needles, scanners and levers :-)
>
>The dream would be something like a flatbed scanner which
>noninvasively scanned you and calculated all the necessary stuff from
>the data. Unfortunately that seems to be rather hard to do at present,
>even given the advances in NMR.
If we can narrow the scope of what to check down enough, I think we can
avoid having some huge nightmarish machine. I would suggest starting off
with measuring only a few parameters, then adding capabilities as science
advances.
My first concerns would be making it easy to use, reliable, and cheap.
Later we can add on comprehensiveness.
>> As a practical aside, which specific dimensions would be most useful to
>> measure?
>
>I think a blood-test device would be useful, if limited. Maybe also
>some kind of tissue-mechanics test (collagene flexibility, skin
>properties).
I would think also urine analysis, perhaps done spectrally or through a
gas chromatograph. No, even that sounds a bit much.
How about finding out what basically goes wrong -- i.e., what chemical
changes happen in blood, urine, etc. -- and developing simple solution
tests for those? In other words, mix 1cc of blood with the kit's blood test
solution A and depending on what color it changes, this tells you if blood
LDL levels are too high?
Something like this might prove marketable now.
>My own interest is of course cognition. I have for a long time planned
>to write a cognitive test suite in java, so that one can objectively
>test one's progress, effects of lifestyle, age, nootropics etc without
>the hassle. Another fun idea I have been thinking of is some kind of
>reverse neuropsychology test: you undertake a detailled mental test,
>from which your neurotransmittor levels could be roughly estimated
>(useful to tune nootropics). But right now these are pipe dreams.
I can imagine doing very simple tests, such as those of reaction time to
visual stimuli combined with a measurement of neurotransmitter levels...
This is not as glamorous as the other two you mention, but if we start
out with a simpler goal we might achieve it, market it, and move on to
some more complex/interesting.
Daniel Ust
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