A study led by Stanford Medicine researchers has found that an injection blocking a protein linked to aging can reverse the natural loss of knee cartilage in older mice.
Because paywall I'm unable to open the paper, but do they ever specify the structure of the small molecule itself? In the associated non-paper materials (news pieces etc.) isn't identified beyond the name they gave it, PGDHi.
Getting vibes like a compsci paper that describes all about what an algo does but hides the sourcecode itself.
basically every growth process in the body can be induced by chemicals. and so now people are starting to take some of these chemicals. we will see how it turns out
I feel it's unfair to ding Linux on this, even with the implied "slightly less".
I've had Windows as my main personal computer for practically forever, because of games. Before that it was DOS. That changed a couple months ago.
Literally just now--in preparation for this comment--I decided to try something I never tried before: I mounted my Win10 drive, picked an arbitrary old Windows game EXE (2006 "Prey" game demo), and launched it as a "non-Steam game" with just one little drop-down menu tweak... and it launched! I may get 10 FPS instead of 200, but that's more than I expected off the bat.
In the the "years of the Linux desktop" of my youth, I wasn't nearly as optimistic. In terms of more-recent games, I have little reason to keep my old drive for dual-boot purposes except for specific games that go out of their way to interfere with clumsy anti-cheat rootkits.
Survivor bias of those things that haven't been solved.
Notably absent:
The fat pill
HIV fix
Cystic fibrosis
We make fun of the stuff that hasn't been solved yet ("It's always ten years away!") while ignoring the things that were previously always ten years away until scientists cracked it.
Back on /. (way back when!) I read an article about optic nerve regrowth in mice. IIRC a lattice was built, stem cells shot onto it, and some other stuff was done, and a new optic nerve ended up growing.
It involved removing the poor mouses existing eye, so there was no net gain (still had a mouse with only 1 working eye), but I was hopeful progress would be made so I could get myself a working optic nerve.
Nope. No progress in 20+ years. Someone got a paper published and went on and did something else.
It is a relatively uncommon problem, for ~98% of children with a problem with their optic nerve, patching the opposite eye works to force the optic nerve to grow. I'm in the (un)lucky 2%!
Admittedly not the worst rare health problem to have.
Would this work for rheumatoid arthritis? I don’t know anything about it myself so it could be a completely different thing, but someone I know has it and it is awful. Would be great to see a treatment coming through.
My dream is to be able to run again. Please. Let me run a 10k at least once more in my life. To feel that stillness and freedom and calm that sets in when the brain start going to hibernation after about 7km.
I broke my ankle nearly two years ago. I've had three surgeries already and will be getting a total ankle replacement in about a month. Even with that, I will never run again.
Sometimes in a dream, I'll start running. I'll notice how magically effortless it feels. How wonderful to be able to run again. Then a little voice in the back of my head reminds me that this can't be real. It wakes me up every time.
It was a rough day when I opened Strava to log one of my physical therapy walks and realized that if I scroll down a bit, I can find a record of the longest run I will ever do.
I'm mostly at peace with it now. I'm grateful that at least I was into running for a while before I lost it, so at least I don't regret never having done it. And I never really enjoyed it then anyway. I just did it for health reasons and the sense of accomplishment.
I'm sorry for your suffering. I know what this longing feels like.
Check the ElliptiGo. It gives you a similar feeling without the impact on the knees or hip. I know someone who was an avid long life runner. He substituted running for using the ElliptiGo for years and seemed very happy with it. Surprisingly, he was able to run again. I also have the ElliptiGo, but I don't have knee problems, I started using it because at one time I was having neck pain and couldn't run, bike or swim.
I'm in a similar situation. In my case, I can't walk pain-free anymore with or without insoles. Operations are possible but again, not a good solution, just lots of metallic rods in affected areas, weeks to months of heeling, no work, not a permanent fix, more like getting a root canal, and getting a crown. I'm hopeful something meaningful, affordable comes out of all the research is being done.
I’ve had my shoulders “cleaned up” arthroscopically, and the pain is still a major preventer of movement. I would love to stay on the mats longer with something that doesn’t harken to medieval times. So excited at this prospect.
It does get better with physio and exercise. Took me twenty years to recover full (100%) pain-free mobility. It still occasionally finds itself in an uncomfortable spot that can be self-freed, but it can now hold muscle tone across the fascia.
HN posts about mouse studies always trigger a bunch of skepticism. I’m a layperson so it’s hard to separate the informed comments from me-too contrarians.
Are there areas of medicine where mouse models have a much higher or lower success rate in human trials?
>Human cartilage samples taken from knee replacement surgeries also responded positively. These samples included both the supportive extracellular matrix of the joint and cartilage-producing chondrocyte cells. When treated, the tissue began forming new, functional cartilage.
Once again, not in humans, in mice. We don't know if the same result happens in humans. At all. We need to proceed to clinical trials to determine if a result is indeed positive.
With all the mouse research, a lab should compile the top 300 interventions, lifestyles, regimens, etc, and apply it to a generation of mice. Give them all the best of the best gene edits, diets, environments, drug regimens, therapies, exercise, enrichment, and everything else. Get one or two broods of pups each year and breed them for healthspan and well-being, and each year, incorporate the latest and greatest research. Any time they need treatment, or surgery, select from the latest best research for that specific illness or injury.
We have decades of superb mouse health optimization research, it should be applied.
Is this available for dogs? I have an aging pup who has early arthritis and I'm considering NAD+ precursor supplements, but this seems much more promising.
I had microfracture knee surgery. My knee still doesn't feel 100%, and I would love to remain active and keep running. Today, I can do daily work activities, but some physical activities, like running, are painful. I hope this can become a viable solution for humans one day. It would remarkably improve my life.
41 comments
[ 0.19 ms ] story [ 62.6 ms ] threadOn a serious note, it seems like a whole lot of drugs work great on mice and not so much on people.
A small molecule inhibitor of 15-hydroxy prostaglandin dehydrogenase causes cartilage regeneration. I hope they fast-track it to human trials.
It is being trialed to prevent muscle weakness and some of those patients will have arthritis and they can be assessed for statistical improvement.
Same thing happened with GLP1
Getting vibes like a compsci paper that describes all about what an algo does but hides the sourcecode itself.
Cartilage Regrowth
Room Temperature Semiconductors
Quantum Computing
The only subjects that are more Year Of The Linux Desktop than Linux itself.After Win11 Microsoft really did all they could to get us there this year.
I've had Windows as my main personal computer for practically forever, because of games. Before that it was DOS. That changed a couple months ago.
Literally just now--in preparation for this comment--I decided to try something I never tried before: I mounted my Win10 drive, picked an arbitrary old Windows game EXE (2006 "Prey" game demo), and launched it as a "non-Steam game" with just one little drop-down menu tweak... and it launched! I may get 10 FPS instead of 200, but that's more than I expected off the bat.
In the the "years of the Linux desktop" of my youth, I wasn't nearly as optimistic. In terms of more-recent games, I have little reason to keep my old drive for dual-boot purposes except for specific games that go out of their way to interfere with clumsy anti-cheat rootkits.
Notably absent:
The fat pill HIV fix Cystic fibrosis
We make fun of the stuff that hasn't been solved yet ("It's always ten years away!") while ignoring the things that were previously always ten years away until scientists cracked it.
It involved removing the poor mouses existing eye, so there was no net gain (still had a mouse with only 1 working eye), but I was hopeful progress would be made so I could get myself a working optic nerve.
Nope. No progress in 20+ years. Someone got a paper published and went on and did something else.
It is a relatively uncommon problem, for ~98% of children with a problem with their optic nerve, patching the opposite eye works to force the optic nerve to grow. I'm in the (un)lucky 2%!
Admittedly not the worst rare health problem to have.
That would be quiet something to feel that again.
Sometimes in a dream, I'll start running. I'll notice how magically effortless it feels. How wonderful to be able to run again. Then a little voice in the back of my head reminds me that this can't be real. It wakes me up every time.
It was a rough day when I opened Strava to log one of my physical therapy walks and realized that if I scroll down a bit, I can find a record of the longest run I will ever do.
I'm mostly at peace with it now. I'm grateful that at least I was into running for a while before I lost it, so at least I don't regret never having done it. And I never really enjoyed it then anyway. I just did it for health reasons and the sense of accomplishment.
I'm sorry for your suffering. I know what this longing feels like.
Are there areas of medicine where mouse models have a much higher or lower success rate in human trials?
It's discouraging to see these on HN and then realize that most never go anywhere, or are so far out you may not see it in your lifetime.
Maybe we should flag anything not already in a phase 3 trial :)
Once again, not in humans, in mice. We don't know if the same result happens in humans. At all. We need to proceed to clinical trials to determine if a result is indeed positive.
Reduce arthritis, get cancer?
We have decades of superb mouse health optimization research, it should be applied.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11862886/