YHK - yet another hacker news clone

Castration extends life span, but in a surprising way, mouse study suggests

48 points amelius 8 hours ago 49 comments

sandymcmurray 7 hours ago | parent

It just seems longer.

brudgers 6 hours ago | parent

That’s not what she said.

riazrizvi 6 hours ago | parent

Doctor: "So yes, the good news is we can extend your lifespan by 30yrs, the bad news is we have to remove an area of your brain that generates your will to live".

williamgators 7 hours ago | parent

So does respecting the law but what fun is that?

Aurornis 7 hours ago | parent

The surprising part is that neutering males after puberty showed the larger increase:

> However, mice that were neutered as adults gained the most. The procedure stretched their lives by about 33%, compared with 19% and 26% increases, respectively, for the animals fixed before or after puberty.

That trend goes opposite of what would be expected from a simple area under the curve model where presence of the testes correlated with reduced lifespan.

The link between male hormones and aging has always been interesting but I think there’s going to be a renewed interest as TRT clinics have become common and even men who aren’t hypogonadal can now be prescribed TRT after a short consult with a doctor from their local clinic who never turns anyone down.

Among the people I know who were more cavalier with TRT and keeping their testosterone levels at the top of the normal range for years, all of them have started talking about how it feels they’ve aged. Anecdotally, they look older than their age to me, but I didn’t realize how much testosterone was associated with accelerated aging until I looked at the research. I always thought the visual changes were a side effect of the associated hair growth changes, facial structure changes, and lifestyle factors that often come along with the people who use testosterone at levels above what’s needed to get toward the median of the range.

The numbers in this study preprint are close enough that I’d want to see more replication, but it would suggest that the relationship is more complicated than simply having androgens accelerate aging.

rubicon33 6 hours ago | parent

Upvoted you but, I was surprised by this comment:

"all of them have started talking about how it feels they’ve aged"

As anecdotes go, I've seen completely the opposite posted all over the internet. Guys that hop on TRT and say its the best they've felt since their 20s.

Read enough of those posts and it becomes a potentially dangerous thought pattern, that the reason you don't feel like you did in your 20s is solvable. Or maybe not? Therein resides the issue with anecdotes, they're just not reliable unfortunately.

redanddead 6 hours ago | parent

Yeah, sucks that we can't have serious conversation about this, everyone's so emotional about it

smallmancontrov 6 hours ago | parent

Smells like astroturf.

I'm sure part of it is genuine bro-science dumbassery, though: over the years I have probably overheard a dozen gym conversations indicating that someone thinks TRT will reverse their balding or improve their hair. The truth is exactly the opposite -- male hormones tend to exacerbate male pattern balding, because of course they do. I think many people try to model the world by attaching a "good" or "bad" bit to everything and there are cases with steep tradeoffs where this goes very wrong. TRT is one of them, and once they've decided "TRT good" then "TRT fixes hair" and "TRT fixes aging" are compression artifacts.

I still suspect it's mostly astroturf.

rubicon33 5 hours ago | parent

You've actually heard people say TRT fixes hair? I am doubtful because you can google that topic right now, "TRT effect on hair" and find an absolute abundance of reports that it does the exact opposite. Grows hair where you don't want it, loses hair on your head.

I feel really bad for anyone who is being served false info about TRT fixing hair on their head. If there's one confirmed possible downside, from what I can tell, that is it (there may be many more).

smallmancontrov 4 hours ago | parent

Google doesn't have big muscles, what would it know?

I kid, but only slightly: bro-science does not come from researching things on google or anywhere else. In theory it comes from personal experience, in practice it is usually made up on the spot or reverse-engineered from desires or self-interest.

rubicon33 4 hours ago | parent

I mean, I sort agree... My interpretation of "bro science" is a combination of some dude getting questionable advice from another dude at the gym, but also on Reddit.

That's effectively what I mean by "Google" in the bro science context. Even there you'll be hard pressed to find anecdotes from TRT supporters who claim it improved their head hair growth. I find a lot that note it increases hair everywhere ELSE but not the head.

smallmancontrov 4 hours ago | parent

Even the remote threat of being fact-checked does wonders to keep people from making up bullshit. I don't know that I've ever heard "TRT improves (head) hair" online, but I probably hear it roughly once a year in the gym. I work out less than an hour three times a week, so we are talking about a fairly high amount of presence for such a specific piece of bullshit.

AngryData 5 hours ago | parent

Well yeah, anyone that is currently on TRT is going to feel stronger and more vigorous short term. But in long term effects they could feel they aged faster overall.

If I took aphetamines I would feel more energetic and capable than I would without in the short term. But long term it might not make me more energetic and capable overall due to the adverse effects.

Obscurity4340 2 hours ago | parent

If you stay at the same dose and know you can slow it down and go down a few pegs anytime by skipping the day/week's doses, it more than evens out (assuming you've developed routines to compensate either way and you have redundancies in place to cover you for when you're slowing down)

andrewclunn 7 hours ago | parent

If mice studies were analogous to humans, we would have cured numerous things by now. I'm all for taking correlation as worthy of follow up research, but I aint chopping off my balls based on it.

yrjrjjrjjtjjr 7 hours ago | parent

They note that castration is known to benefit longevity in a wide range of mammalian species. So I think there is a good chance there is something real here. Anyway the real prize is of course the castration mimetic drugs they hint at, that would give the benefits without having to actually remove the balls.

0x3444ac53 7 hours ago | parent

There are better reasons to get your balls chopped off

jordanb 7 hours ago | parent

New tech bro fad is gonna be bleak.

arcticfox 6 hours ago | parent

My first thought was Bryan Johnson

fullshark 6 hours ago | parent

Need to see the studies on the productivity increases first before I consider it.

nonethewiser 6 hours ago | parent

New? Tech industry has a far higher concentration of males that have castrated themselves already.

rl3 6 hours ago | parent

>> mouse study suggests

Probably the only thing preventing half this site from reaching for the scissors.

OkayPhysicist 6 hours ago | parent

IMO, all the evidence for castration increasing lifespan is pretty strong evidence that all the "I'm going to live 200 years" bluster by a certain contingent of techbros is merely that. I've yet to hear about any of them becoming eunuchs.

graemep 6 hours ago | parent

I could imagine some of them doing it: they seem pretty desperate to live longer.

It reminds me of Larry Niven's Pak Protectors.

throw-the-towel 6 hours ago | parent

However, they also seem to be very much concerned about offspring. Maybe they would freeze sperm, IDK.

Earw0rm 6 hours ago | parent

Disregard females, acquire seniority.

SillyUsername 6 hours ago | parent

I don't think anybody has the balls to try this tbh.

limaoscarjuliet 6 hours ago | parent

Nice! :-)

antonmks 6 hours ago | parent

So we found a way to extend the human life. But, like usually, there is a catch.

swiftcoder 6 hours ago | parent

Catch? You go through the prime of your life as male, and then prestige into Cat Girl.

world2vec 6 hours ago | parent

This has always been known? Capons live longer than intact roosters. Wethers live longer than intact rams. Every farmer knows this.

sowbug 6 hours ago | parent

Yes. The "surprising" part of the article is when the castration is performed.

(So this doesn't end up just another RTFA thread, an interesting factoid: the "bellwether" is the castrated -- and thus relatively docile -- sheep that wears a bell, helping track the flock.)

HughParry 6 hours ago | parent

paging bryan johnson

nico 6 hours ago | parent

So is that why women on average live longer than men?

That would make a good case for castration after kids. But it needs to be sold really really well

moralestapia 6 hours ago | parent

You vill loze ze ballz.

antonmks 6 hours ago | parent

and you will like it.

m3kw9 6 hours ago | parent

At a certain point, extending life span isn't everything.

brudgers 6 hours ago | parent

Hell is eternity with the kind of assholes who want to live forever.

BizarroLand 5 hours ago | parent

Castrated tech bro billionaires on TRT, specifically.

devsda 6 hours ago | parent

While it is not possible in modern society, history should have examples of royal courts having adults castrated at various ages and employing them.

Their records should be a good reference point even though they might not be scientific observations.

dachris 6 hours ago | parent

"While it is not possible in modern society"

Self-optimizing life extensionists: hold my beer.

nonethewiser 6 hours ago | parent

What do you mean it's not possible in modern society? There are men who castrate themselves.

shiandow 5 hours ago | parent

Is it specifically castration? You'd think HRT for trans women would help close the age gap. Maybe in a few decades we'll know more.

silverFork 6 hours ago | parent

"UGA research finds sterilized dogs live longer"

9.4 yrs > 7.9 yrs .. 40k dogs tested

both sexes. females 26% longer. Males 13%

https://news.uga.edu/uga-research-finds-sterilized-dogs-live... https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/04/study-spa...

r0meo1 6 hours ago | parent

my guess is IGF-1 is probably one of the biggest reasons, male castration will lower IGF-1 permanently, there's already been other studies showing both animals and humans with lower IGF-1 levels tend to live longer than those with higher levels

cj 6 hours ago | parent

IGF-1 can promote cancer growth. (I don't think it causes cancer, but improves the environment for it to grow)

Testosterone plays a role in stimulating release of IGF-1.

sirmike_ 6 hours ago | parent

Good news for the 21st century eunuchs on the life preferences side of humanity.

ruined 5 hours ago | parent

the dolls stay winning

stevenalowe 5 hours ago | parent

Revenge can be a huge motivator…