Speaker Suggestions for Ninth CR Conference

[keithsct]

I firmly support inviting Dr. Greger.  He follows the science (even if he cherry picks a little bit), but even more importantly he's written on CR before and is CRON friendly.  I think he might be interested in talking to a bunch of the healthiest people ever all gathered in one room.  Might spawn the idea for more topics for him to research for his daily videos.  His audience reach is pretty big, so any CR friendly videos will potentially encourage new CR followers which I think is a big win. 

[Michael R]

I firmly support inviting Dr. Greger.  He follows the science (even if he cherry picks a little bit), but even more importantly he's written on CR before and is CRON friendly.  I think he might be interested in talking to a bunch of the healthiest people ever all gathered in one room.  Might spawn the idea for more topics for him to research for his daily videos.  His audience reach is pretty big, so any CR friendly videos will potentially encourage new CR followers which I think is a big win. 

 

At the risk of a flame war, I can't believe you or Dean has any respect for this guy. "Cherry picks a little"? He is the Grand Inquisitor of literature review, torturing the evidence outrageously until he extracts a predetermined conclusion. "CR friendly"? He seems to take every opportunity to downplay the benefits of CR in favor of guess-what kind of diet, and is (as usual) happy to distort the evidence to do so — as we discussed on Adventists vs Okinawans (there's actually several additional sleights-of-hand in his 'analysis' here that I've not gotten around to pointing out) and more recently veganism vs. CR on IGF-1. Not to mention hyping up in vitro studies, abusing the evidential pyramid on olive oil, citing the conclusions of single relatively weak studies as proven fact, etc.

 

I think he'd only be interested in talking to a bunch of the healthiest people ever all gathered in one room as a means of convincing them to go vegan, or to pretend that we all are. Inviting him would be a waste of the Society's budget, and of attendees' time and brainspace.

[Dean Pomerleau]

At the risk of a flame war, I can't believe you or Dean has any respect for this guy....

 

I think he'd only be interested in talking to a bunch of the healthiest people ever all gathered in one room as a means of convincing them to go vegan, or to pretend that we all are. 

 

I love it. I expected nothing less from Michael, and to an extent I agree with him - Dr. Greger does sometimes contorts the evidence to fit his strong bias in favor of a plant-based diet, and while he is aware of CR, downplays its significance more than I think the evidence warrants. 

 

All I can do is reiterate what I said when I originally suggested Dr. Greger as a possible speaker.

 

Given the love/hate relationship he has with several vocal CR folks, a discussion with him is bound to be entertaining!

 

A debate between Michael and Dr. Greger on the relative contributions of CR and plant-based eating to longevity (or any other topic of common interest that Michael would like to take issue with ) would be terrific fun! If we video it and post it to the web, it is bound to draw quite a bit of attention to the CR Society, given Dr. Greger's popularity and the way many people take his words as gospel.

 

 

 Inviting him would be a waste of the Society's budget, and of attendees' time and brainspace.

 

I disagree. Between the increased attendance at the conference if Dr. Greger were on the schedule to debate Michael, and the benefits of new members joining the CR Society as a result of seeing the video of the debate posted online, the monetary upside of inviting Dr. Greger might very well cover the expense of subsidizing his attendance, and more!

 

--Dean

[Dean Pomerleau]

Here is something that I think would be worth having a presentation on and/or a discussion session about at the conference, that hasn't been mentioned yet as far as I can tell - Citizen Science.

 

Let's figure out some sort of study we can do as a community, either with or without academic support, to advance knowledge of the effects of CR & diet on health & longevity!

 

--Dean

[Saul]

 

I firmly support inviting Dr. Greger.  He follows the science (even if he cherry picks a little bit), but even more importantly he's written on CR before and is CRON friendly.  I think he might be interested in talking to a bunch of the healthiest people ever all gathered in one room.  Might spawn the idea for more topics for him to research for his daily videos.  His audience reach is pretty big, so any CR friendly videos will potentially encourage new CR followers which I think is a big win. 

 

At the risk of a flame war, I can't believe you or Dean has any respect for this guy. "Cherry picks a little"? He is the Grand Inquisitor of literature review, torturing the evidence outrageously until he extracts a predetermined conclusion. "CR friendly"? He seems to take every opportunity to downplay the benefits of CR in favor of guess-what kind of diet, and is (as usual) happy to distort the evidence to do so — as we discussed on Adventists vs Okinawans (there's actually several additional sleights-of-hand in his 'analysis' here that I've not gotten around to pointing out) and more recently veganism vs. CR on IGF-1. Not to mention hyping up in vitro studies, abusing the evidential pyramid on olive oil, citing the conclusions of single relatively weak studies as proven fact, etc.

 

I think he'd only be interested in talking to a bunch of the healthiest people ever all gathered in one room as a means of convincing them to go vegan, or to pretend that we all are. Inviting him would be a waste of the Society's budget, and of attendees' time and brainspace.

 

I agree strongly with Michael.

 

I would like to see a talk by Michael Rae, as the leading intellectual (and one of the most dedicated members) of the CR Society.  IMO, Michael should be given free reign -- to talk on any topic(s) that he thinks appropriate.

 

  -- Saul

[BrianMDelaney]

Here is something that I think would be worth having a presentation on and/or a discussion session about at the conference, that hasn't been mentioned yet as far as I can tell - Citizen Science.n

 

Agree strongly!!

- Brian

P.S. Saul: One of the great things about the forums is that we don't have to quote full posts.... :)

[Michael R]

All:
 
Working from a suggestions list curated from the Forum posts by Robert Krikorian:
 

1) Dean:
    Luigi Fontana

Yes.
 
Dean, Saul:
    Aubrey de Grey
 
Dr. de Grey actually already presented his "Weather" thesis in our last mtg in Tucson; I don't object to doing this over again, but wouldn't prioritize this myself. (And yes, IF we ask him, I'd do a counterpoint if desired, tho' it's not going to be as robust as it would have been on publication dates).

Dean:
Max More, Transhumanist and director of Alcor cryonics
 
Cryonics seems to me to be a relevant ancillary subject, tho' not a *highly*  relevant one.

Dean, Saul, James
    Longo or Mattson on the benefits of Intermittent Fasting vs. continuous CR

Good.

Dean, Keithsct and, to my surprise, Brian:
Greger
I'm *strongly* opposed to having Greger. He's a noxious, ideological manipulator of data.

Dean:
Citizen Science discussion
 
Good.


2) James Cain:
Micronutrient sources
Diet/lifestyle flexibility; mild vs more severe CR
Optimal nutrition lifestyle
 
4) Brian [adds]   
Genetic influence on dietary/lifestyle intervention

The thing about these subjects is that the data are thin even in the general population, and essentially nonexistent in the CR context: I don't think any serious researchers would be willing or competent to do a presentation (the exception being Fontana, who's already nominated, whom we *could* ask to do double-duty). Indeed, in all of our conferences to date, we've had these awkward, embarrassing rounds of attendees trying to press researchers for their opinions on human practice, and with the exception of Luigi they all rightly demur. We COULD just have internal roundtable/feather-passing on some of this, but this still strikes me as a weak set of subjects.

James Cain:
Ravussin, CALERIE
 
 
While I respect him, R isn't really interested in CR (he's an obesity researcher, not a biogerontologist), and CALERIE wasn't really a CR study, but a study of weight loss in obese (pilot studies) or slightly overweight (CALERIE proper) people, which makes it impossible to disentangle beneficial effects or effects suggesting CR's translatability from simple obesity-avoidance effects. That is, the original CALERIE pilot studies (all the papers published prior to 2014, which include most of the published CALERIE papers so far) were in overweight or  obese people brought down to high-normal body weight via diet and/or exercise; CALERIE proper was somewhat more selective — "Body mass index averaged 25.1 (range: 21.9–28.0kg/m2" — but this unfortunately still leaves a lot of suspect data points. Additionally, the degree of CR *targeted* was mild, and in practice thet actual degree *achieved* was even milder: "The CR group achieved 11.7±0.7 %CR (mean ± standard error) and maintained 10.4±0.4% weight loss."

Overall, then, I don't think there's much or anything to learn here.

3) Saul:
    James Whitfield, CNRC, Ottowa

Opposed: off-topic. (It's ""Ottawa," BTW).

Saul:
Holloszy

Redundant to Fontana AFAICS.
 
Saul:
    Michael Rae

Not sure on what I'd present.

4) Brian;   
    Denise Minger

Not really relevant to CR; does some interesting stuff (generally nice, tho' sometimes flawed, destruction of the China Study; very nice refutation of some of the BS about Ancel Keys that is endlessly recycled out of Taubes' book into other pop-low-carb books and in the low-carb and Paleo blogosphere), but I'm not sure on what I'd want her to present to our group.

    
6) Tim C:
    Someone like Gary Taubes (but not Gary T) - [RK - maybe Jeff Volek, expert on ketone metabolism who I've thought about inviting, especially if we have Mattson to talk about meal timing and associated benefits of ketones vs CR]

Volek could be good, particularly (as RK suggests) to complement Mattson.

Michael
 
I've requested in the past, and would still really like to have, a session on CR and IGF-1, with Andrzej Bartke presenting on the benefits of reduced IGF-1 via mutations and CR, Bill Sonntag on teh BENEFITS of IGF-1 in old animals and possibly people, and Fontana on effects in humans and his work on protein and IGF-1 in rodent cancer models.

I'd also like to have John Speakman come and present his results on CR vs. protein restriction and the dose-response effects of both. He's also contrarian on the plausible magnitude of benefits of CR in humans.

[Michael R]

This is a new thread for discussing possible speakers for the Ninth CR Society International Conference in Tucson, Arizona. Please weigh in — and do so quickly, as we need to make decisions and get invitations out before potential presenters' schedules get filled up.

[Dean Pomerleau]

Michael,

 

 

First, thanks for the summary of the suggestions to date.

 

A few things:

• You appear to have left off my suggestion of Liz Parrish from Bioviva.
• I won't rehash them, but hope that others in the position to contribute to the decisions about invited speakers will consider the upsides I've described of including Dr. Greger.
• I concur that a session on CR and IGF-1, either by Luigi or one of the other researchers you suggest would be great.
• A session on protein restriction and/or intermittent fasting by researchers with such expertise would be very good.

--Dean

[Michael R]

To be clear, that post wasn't intended either to be a summary or to rule anyone in or off the list (we have the whole thread here, and newcomers are being directed from the homepage link diretly to the first post in the thread): those were my personal views & comments on suggestions to date. I'm not expressing an opinion here on Bi0Viva.

[Dean Pomerleau]

To be clear, that post wasn't intended either to be a summary or to rule anyone in or off the list (we have the whole thread here, and newcomers are being directed from the homepage link diretly to the first post in the thread): those were my personal views & comments on suggestions to date. I'm not expressing an opinion here on Bi0Viva.

Michael,

 

Thanks for clarifying that your post was expressing your personal perspective, and wasn't an official summary or endorsement by you on behalf of the CRS as your role as CRS Director and VP of research.

 

I was confused...

 

-Dean

[Saul]

It would be very interesting to invite a member of the group at Berkeley that engaged in the study of Oxytocin to treat (or perhaps slow down the progress of) sarcopenia in aging mice and people. Such a person might have new, as yet unpublished, data on this very interesting subject.

[keithsct]

One longevity related topic might be organ replacement.  There has been a lot of progress with ghost organs over the last decade and a talk from one of those researchers might be interesting.  It's not CR, but at the same time it might be of considerable interest of those that may require a little help (even with CR) before Aubrey's dream becomes reality.

[BrianMDelaney]

Saul, intriguing idea. And sarcopenia is a concern of many on CR (even if loss of muscle mass doesn't necessarily have to be something to correct).

 

- Brian

[BrianMDelaney]

This has been tossed around off list by a few of us -- well aware of the importance of not putting pressure on a young professor just starting his career! -- but it's worth mentioning more publicly: What about our own James Cain?!

 

James could speak about many aspects of CR, of course. But one I'm thinking of is the question of the relevance (or not) of dietary constituents in CR.

 

Another: He's been public about challenging aspects of his 23andMe results, and he could speak about how his genome has made him modify his CR (knowing, of course, that such modifications are still very speculative, as Michael has pointed out).

 

James, don't mean to put you on the spot!!

 

- Brian

[James Cain]

This has been tossed around off list by a few of us -- well aware of the importance of not putting pressure on a young professor just starting his career! -- but it's worth mentioning more publically: What about our own James Cain?!

 

James could speak about many aspects of CR, of course. But one I'm thinking of is the question of the relevance (or not) of dietary constituents in CR.

 

Another: He's been public about challenging aspects of his 23andMe results, and he could speak about how his genome has made him modify his CR (knowing, of course, that such modifications are still very speculative, as Michael as pointed out).

 

James, don't mean to put you on the spot!!

 

- Brian

 

I am grateful and humbled by the endorsement, Brian. I think quite a few of us here would provide excellent presentations and discussions. I would certainly present if my background and topic were of interest. I'd really enjoy talking about the potential importance of dietary constituents in CR, and how these generally relate to the topics I suggested for the conference, and possibly how genetic results could be leveraged (or not, with limitations) to inform someone's CR practice. I'm not sure there are active researchers in this area that could be invited, but rather it would require a sort of review of literature cobbled together from multiple perspectives. It could be fun, if the interest is there.

 

 

James Cain:

Ravussin, CALERIE

 

 

While I respect him, R isn't really interested in CR (he's an obesity researcher, not a biogerontologist), and CALERIE wasn't really a CR study, but a study of weight loss in obese (pilot studies) or slightly overweight (CALERIE proper) people, which makes it impossible to disentangle beneficial effects or effects suggesting CR's translatability from simple obesity-avoidance effects. That is, the original CALERIE pilot studies (all the papers published prior to 2014, which include most of the published CALERIE papers so far) were in overweight or  obese people brought down to high-normal body weight via diet and/or exercise; CALERIE proper was somewhat more selective — "Body mass index averaged 25.1 (range: 21.9–28.0kg/m2" — but this unfortunately still leaves a lot of suspect data points. Additionally, the degree of CR *targeted* was mild, and in practice thet actual degree *achieved* was even milder: "The CR group achieved 11.7±0.7 %CR (mean ± standard error) and maintained 10.4±0.4% weight loss."

 

Overall, then, I don't think there's much or anything to learn here.

I completely agree. I put it out there as a suggestion because Ravussin is generally available and interested in presenting (not all researchers are), and to suggest CALERIE as a potential topic if the general interest was there. I personally could care less about CALERIE beyond what you summed up here, but I'm not the only one attending the conference and this may fit with other peoples' views on how CR fits into their life.

 

I guess we should frame the overall tone of the conference--is the content more for high-level current and serious practitioners, a more academically accessible discussion of CR (or some version thereof) for the wider population, or some mix of the two? The former would be excellent but would attract a smaller crowd, which may be completely fine, while the latter may (probably not) attract a wider audience but could be considered "watered down." Again, I'd opt for the former because that's where my intellectual interests lie. Or perhaps I'm overthinking the whole thing, which is very likely.

 

Michael

 

I've requested in the past, and would still really like to have, a session on CR and IGF-1, with Andrzej Bartke presenting on the benefits of reduced IGF-1 via mutations and CR, Bill Sonntag on teh BENEFITS of IGF-1 in old animals and possibly people, and Fontana on effects in humans and his work on protein and IGF-1 in rodent cancer models.

 

I'd also like to have John Speakman come and present his results on CR vs. protein restriction and the dose-response effects of both. He's also contrarian on the plausible magnitude of benefits of CR in humans.

These are all excellent topics and speakers. I've been to Bartke's lab and have talked research with him, and I've seen him present professionally as well as to a local 'science cafe' event. He was very humble and sincere, and he has a very deep understanding of the research and physiology in his area, and he effectively scales his discussion to any level of intellect of his audience.

[Dean Pomerleau]

I am grateful and humbled by the endorsement, Brian. I think quite a few of us here would provide excellent presentations and discussions. I would certainly present if my background and topic were of interest. I'd really enjoy talking about the potential importance of dietary constituents in CR, and how these generally relate to the topics I suggested for the conference, and possibly how genetic results could be leveraged (or not, with limitations) to inform someone's CR practice. I'm not sure there are active researchers in this area that could be invited, but rather it would require a sort of review of literature cobbled together from multiple perspectives. It could be fun, if the interest is there.

 

James,

 

I second Brian's suggestion. I'd love to hear you talk, particularly about the use of genetic information to adjust and inform one's practice of CR, and one's lifestyle in general.

 

--Dean

[KHashmi317]

Jeff Teeters has several video highlights from CRII, CRIII and CRIV, here on his YouTube channel:

 

https://www.youtube.com/user/jeffteeters/videos

 

Example:

 

 

Speaking of YouTube ... how about a LiveStream from the upcoming Conf.?

 

 

Oh, BTW, some photos from my 2006 Conf. Trip -- Tuscon is lovely that time of year!

 

https://picasaweb.google.com/110325750923243057102/TucsonArizona2006?feat=flashslideshow#5322139443960102194

 

 

[Michael R]

Good news! Registration for the Ninth CR Conference is now open, and our speakers confirmed! Register now!

[Dean Pomerleau]

Great - thanks Michael!

 

Can you or someone else involved in organizing the conference provide a little more detail on the schedule, to help us to know what travel arrangements to make?  It looks like there is a reception Wednesday evening, but when does the conference end? Specifically, when (day and time) is the last session planned for?

 

Thanks!

 

--Dean

[Michael R]

We don't yet have a detailed schedule, in part because we need to juggle around our speakers' differing availabilities. But do note that the trip to the Biosphere will be on Saturday afternoon, and will obviously take some hours including transport, so if you're going to attend that you should certainly broadly plan to be in Tucson until late afternoon or early evening.

[Saul]

Dear ALL,

 

I've signed up for CR IX, and have reserved a room with two queen sized beds at the Conference Hilton Hotel, arriving Wednesday, May 18, departing Sunday, May 22 (I could change that to late Saturday, May 21).

 

I'm interested in sharing the room with another attendee, to reduce costs. 

 

If interested, you can reach me by email at lubkin@math.rochester.edu, or by cellphoneat 585-733-3537.

 

 

  -- Saul