Still as relevant 15 years later, as we still live in a world in which aging can be addressed via the construction of rejuvenation therapies, but most people are simply disinterested in the prospect, the science, and doing anything other than crumbling, suffering, and dying like their parents and grandparents.
The one big difference between the present and 15 years ago: the first rejuvenation therapies worthy of the name now exist in the form of senolytic treatments that selectively destroy senescent cells. Pretty much everyone over the age of 50 should be taking them once a year or so, and would have a better life as a result. It makes the pathos of the situation somewhat greater than it was.
Not really even in purgatory, I'd say. The FDA doesn't recognize the general concept of aging as something for which you could be treated, so there's no approval process they could go through in the first place.
Another strategy is to apply an anti-aging drug to a specific disease of aging.
In any case, I guess I was really asking what these senolytic treatments are, and whether any of them are available now either as approved drugs or supplements.
Dasatinib + quercetin has been shown in a clinical trial to remove senescent cells in humans in much the same way it does in mice [1].
High dose fisetin (i.e. take a whole bottle of the stuff at one go, not just a couple of pills) works about as well as dasatinib + quercetin in mice, but absent published results from the presently ongoing Mayo Clinic trial we're all dubious that will translate to humans, given how widely these sorts of compounds have been consumed, tested, and assayed [2].
Ditto piperlongumine.
Beyond that, there are any number of biotech startups developing senolytic immunotherapies, small molecules, gene therapies, topical cosmetics, etc. [3]
The one big difference between the present and 15 years ago: the first rejuvenation therapies worthy of the name now exist in the form of senolytic treatments that selectively destroy senescent cells. Pretty much everyone over the age of 50 should be taking them once a year or so, and would have a better life as a result. It makes the pathos of the situation somewhat greater than it was.