Life extension and health improvement: Calico (Google) and perhaps Vitamin D

Founders of Google have shown very strong interests in improved health

• Sergey Brin: 50% chance of getting Parkinson's disease ( 30-75%)

  • Brin has donated $132m to create DNA database of 7,000 patients and to support work on treatments for the condition

• Larry Page has a rare nerve disease that affects his vocal chords and Hashimoto's thyroiditis.

• Both Brin and Page have long been fixated on how to use data analysis to predict and track disease.

Google spun-off Calico with moonshot chance of curing Cancer in next 20 years (Sept 2013)

• Note: Curing Cancer would extend the average lifespan by 3 years

VitainDWiki suggests that Calico should also invest in restoring Vitamin D levels

• Strong indications that Vitamin D can prevent Parkinson’s Disease ( Brin )

• Hashimoto's thyroiditis ( Page ) does decrease levels of vitamin D

  • Vitamin D might be able to treat Hashimoto's thyroiditis - research (funded by Page/Calico?) is needed

• Doubling vitamin D levels should increase lifespan by 2 years

  • which should also extend the quality of the life by perhaps 10 years

• Improve productivity of Google employees Workplace Wellness and Vitamin D

  • Fewer days of sick leave

  • Able to concentrate better on the job (when not sick)

  • Fewer problems during and after pregnancy

  • Decreased flu and colds

• Improve global health and wellness, just as Google improved global information access

Some candidate Calico funding:

1. Large Intervention trial to double Vitamin D levels – and observe the outcome

   • Note: A doctor found that when approximately doubling the vitamin D levels of all of his patients that they decreased office visits for all reasons from 4 per year down to just 1.

2. Restore vitamin D levels of some (Google?) employees & families and observe difference in sick leave, performance, etc. This could be a Random Controlled Trial

3. Trial of benefit of UVB lighting (which increases vitamin D levels) on health and productivity

   • Note: UVB lighting experiment in a grade school classroom found better attendance, decreased increase in body fat, better test scores, and 5X fewer cavities

4. Selectively install widow panes which are transparent in UVB – which creates vitamin D

   • Monitor sick leave of employees working near these special windows.

5. Focus on low-hanging fruit – improve the vitamin D levels of employees who are in groups which are vitamn D deficient

   • Pregnant,

   • Stay indoors most of the time (virtually all programmers?)

   • Darker skins (Asians, Indians, African-Americans)    Global Google – many offices where dark skin in the norm

   • Many Google offices are far from or very near to the equator (less UVB, darker skin)

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See also VitaminDWiki

• Propose not just Vitamin D monotherapy, will also use Magnesium, Omega-3, and other cofactors

• 2200X more problems from no UVB than too much UVB - WHO 2006

• Death rate 2X higher if low vitamin D - 180,000 adults, not just elderly – May 2012 which has the following chart

Vitamin D will square the curve (live longer AND healthier)