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Scientists Train Their Sights on Death
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findingDulcinea Staff
According to a researcher at Cambridge University, it is possible to slow down the aging process to allow humans to add years—possibly hundreds—to their lifespan. Not all his colleagues agree.
30-Second Summary
Dr. Aubrey de Grey believes humans being could live to be a thousand years old.
While de Grey does not believe the technology required for people to live for millennia will be available in the next 25 years, it is his conviction that 200 years will soon become a feasible life expectancy.
As The Economist explains, Dr. de Grey’s theory, known as Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS), holds that there are seven components to aging. If each of the seven factors is handled correctly, the aging process stops … dead, as it were.
During a conference in July 2005, he explained that in mice researchers are repairing the damage caused by the aging process. As a result, the lifespan of mice in the laboratory has been significantly increased. He hopes that the results seen in mice can be replicated in humans.
When de Grey was asked in a 2006 interview with 60 Minutes reporter Morley Safer whether we can expect to be as spry as we are at 25 at 500, de Grey said that humans living past their expectancy will require constant maintenance.
"If you have difficultly imagining this, think about the situation with houses. With moderate maintenance they stay up, they stay intact, inhabitable more or less forever. It’s just that we have to do a bit of maintenance to keep them going. And it's going to be the same with us," says de Grey.
Dr. de Grey is not without his critics. In response to de Grey’s claims, Professor S. Jay Olshansky of the University of Illinois at Chicago said, “The fact is that nothing in gerontology even comes close to fulfilling the promise of dramatically extended lifespan.”
In 2005, the Centers for Disease Control reported findings that life expectancy for Americans had hit a record high, at an average of 77.6 years. Life is getting longer, but it is yet to be seen whether this is the first intimation of immortality.
While de Grey does not believe the technology required for people to live for millennia will be available in the next 25 years, it is his conviction that 200 years will soon become a feasible life expectancy.
As The Economist explains, Dr. de Grey’s theory, known as Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS), holds that there are seven components to aging. If each of the seven factors is handled correctly, the aging process stops … dead, as it were.
During a conference in July 2005, he explained that in mice researchers are repairing the damage caused by the aging process. As a result, the lifespan of mice in the laboratory has been significantly increased. He hopes that the results seen in mice can be replicated in humans.
When de Grey was asked in a 2006 interview with 60 Minutes reporter Morley Safer whether we can expect to be as spry as we are at 25 at 500, de Grey said that humans living past their expectancy will require constant maintenance.
"If you have difficultly imagining this, think about the situation with houses. With moderate maintenance they stay up, they stay intact, inhabitable more or less forever. It’s just that we have to do a bit of maintenance to keep them going. And it's going to be the same with us," says de Grey.
Dr. de Grey is not without his critics. In response to de Grey’s claims, Professor S. Jay Olshansky of the University of Illinois at Chicago said, “The fact is that nothing in gerontology even comes close to fulfilling the promise of dramatically extended lifespan.”
In 2005, the Centers for Disease Control reported findings that life expectancy for Americans had hit a record high, at an average of 77.6 years. Life is getting longer, but it is yet to be seen whether this is the first intimation of immortality.
Headline Links: The science of longevity
Dr. de Grey’s theory, Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS), holds that there are seven components to aging. If the seven areas are handled properly, the aging process stops. As The Economist explains, those seven components are “cell loss, apoptosis-resistance (the tendency of cells to refuse to die when they are supposed to), gene mutations in the cell nucleus, gene mutations in the mitochondria (the cell's power-packs), the accumulation of junk inside cells, the accumulation of junk outside cells and the accumulation of inappropriate chemical links in the material that supports cells.”
Source: The Economist
In a 2005 Monterey, California, conference de Grey explained aging in a nutshell: “Metabolism (the hugely complex network of homeostatic processes that keep us alive) eventually causes Pathology (the hugely complex network of anti-homeostatic processes that kill us)." He further states that all of the damage associated with aging can be fixed through cell therapy, growth factors, exercise, phagocytosis by immune stimulation, and AGE-breaking molecules/enzymes among other remedies.
Source: The Economist
When de Grey was asked in a 2006 interview with 60 Minutes reporter Morley Safer if we can expect to be as spry as we are at 25 at 500, de Grey stated that humans living past their expectancy will require constant maintenance. "If you have difficultly imagining this, think about the situation with houses. With moderate maintenance they stay up, they stay intact, inhabitable more or less forever. It’s just that we have to do a bit of maintenance to keep them going. And it's going to be the same with us," said de Grey.
Source: 60 Minutes, CBS News
Analysis: Quackwatch
Quackwatch is a non-profit organization, founded in 1969, dedicated to combating “health-related frauds, myths, fads, fallacies and misconduct.” Its Web site carries a “Positioning Statement on Human Aging,” written by three doctors who write for Quackwatch. The paper covers all the treatments for the aging process that are championed at present. The doctors conclude, “Our language on this matter must be unambiguous: there are no lifestyle changes, surgical procedures, vitamins, antioxidants, hormones or techniques of genetic engineering available today that have been demonstrated to influence the processes of human aging.”
Source: Quackwatch
Reactions: Dr. S. Jay Olshansky and Dr. Guy Brown
Dr. S. Jay Olshansky
“The fact is that nothing in gerontology even comes close to fulfilling the promise of dramatically extended lifespan.” So says Professor S. Jay Olshansky of the University of Illinois at Chicago, who the BBC invited to respond to Aubrey de Grey’s claims.
Source: The BBC
Dr. Guy Brown
“Making the end of life worth living”—rather than merely longer—“will be one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century,” writes Dr. Guy Brown. In this Guardian newspaper article, the scientist summarizes the argument of his recent book “The Living End,” in which he argues that the real challenge for modern science is not extending life, but “to prevent aging becoming a living death.”
Source: The Guardian
Guy Brown’s book “The Living End” is available from the findingDulcinea bookstore.
Source: Amazon
Reference Material: The Centers for Disease Control
In 2005, the Centers for Disease Control reported findings that life expectancy for Americans had hit a record high, at an average of 77.6 years. “Mortality rates climbed, however, for Alzheimer’s disease, kidney disease, hypertension, and Parkinson’s disease, which entered the top 15 for the first time.”
Source: LiveScience.com
Related Links: Jonathan Swift, the American Aging Association and the Immortality Institute
The Irish satirist Jonathan Swift, writing in the 18th century, addressed the issue of humanity’s unquenchable desire for longer life in his classic tale “Gulliver’s Travels.” In Part 3, Chapter 10, Gulliver encounters the immortal Struldbrugs, who though immortal are, like today’s geriatrics, condemned to a prolonged infirmity. “When they came to fourscore years, which is reckoned the extremity of living in this country, they had not only all the follies and infirmities of other old men, but many more which arose from the dreadful prospect of never dying. They were not only opinionative, peevish, covetous, morose, vain, talkative, but incapable of friendship, and dead to all natural affection, which never descended below grandchildren.”
Source: About.com
The American Aging Association (AGE) is a not-for-profit organization with the following aims: to increase the functional life span of humans; to inform the public of aging research and how to achieve a long healthy life; and to increase the knowledge of gerontology among medical professionals.
Source: The American Aging Association
The Immortality Institute, based in California, is a non-profit organization that describes its mission as “to conquer the blight of involuntary death.”
The institute’s Web site hosts an 105-minute movie about man’s quest to defeat death and the consequences of humanity’s increasing longevity. As narrated by the institute, the search for immortality begins with “Gilgamesh the King,” mankind’s first literary epic, the tale of a man in search of everlasting life.
The institute’s Web site hosts an 105-minute movie about man’s quest to defeat death and the consequences of humanity’s increasing longevity. As narrated by the institute, the search for immortality begins with “Gilgamesh the King,” mankind’s first literary epic, the tale of a man in search of everlasting life.
Source: The Immortality Institute
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