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by grandchild 1478 days ago
First: in mice.

The next thought that immediately comes to mind is, if it's an edible animal that's been available possibly for centuries, then probably people would have noticed something before. If _any_ well-known ingredient _substantially_ increased lifespan [edit: or keep you younger] by just eating it, we'd know about it for a while now.

2 comments

Korea and Japan, where these are eaten, are 2 of the top 3 countries for life expectancy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expe...

I don't think I really agree with the conclusion that we would notice that. Lifespans and aging are long-term things and the average person has been eating a lot of different things, everyone has stories of the smoker or drinker who lived til 90 and the healthy one who lived til 65 - the amount of confounding variables is very obfuscating, not to mention the massive presumed role of genetics

Additionally, I would guess this isn't a well-known animal, a different comment from user "evdubs" [0] pointed out:

> When served raw, they have a chewy texture and peculiar flavor likened to "rubber dipped in ammonia"

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31634129