Go look at the studies showing resistance training to be pretty effective in seniors before getting excited about NAD+ boosters. The resistance training is probably cheaper and better. One still has studies such as the one showing that dietary nicotinamide doesn't do a great deal in mice [3] - like sirtuin manipulations, it helps fat mice a little, but is distinctly unimpressive otherwise.
Remember that calorie restriction extends life by 40% in mice, but probably five years or less in humans - the effects of all these stress response related mechanisms of metabolic manipulation work through a few overlapping core processes, and scale down with species longevity. That's why I see them as a dead end in comparison to other strategies.
Unless I misunderstand QALY, wouldn't n+5 years of misery not necessarily equal n years of actual quality life? assuming a base quality of 0 < k ≤ 1 with n years, and a calorie restricted life at quality 0 < k' < k with n+5, surely you'd end up at k * n QALYs for a normal life, and k' * (n + 5) for a calorie restricted one? Which might very well be lower given how large n is and how much smaller k' is than k.
Concretely: 85 years of misery is not 5 QALYs more than 80y of normal life.
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I like that comment from a few days ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16675412
I'd take 5 extra QALYs any day.
Ironically, the Q stands for Quality. If the reports on calorie restricted diets are to be believed, that’s not an appropriate descriptor anymore.
Not ironic — that is exactly why I said QALYs and not just years.
Unless I misunderstand QALY, wouldn't n+5 years of misery not necessarily equal n years of actual quality life? assuming a base quality of 0 < k ≤ 1 with n years, and a calorie restricted life at quality 0 < k' < k with n+5, surely you'd end up at k * n QALYs for a normal life, and k' * (n + 5) for a calorie restricted one? Which might very well be lower given how large n is and how much smaller k' is than k.
Concretely: 85 years of misery is not 5 QALYs more than 80y of normal life.
Or am I missing your point, here?
Yes, you are missing their point: they meant that they'd be happy to do something that resulted in five additional QALYs, which this is likely not.