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Seeking Longer Lives; Slower Aging; Even Immortality

would u take a pill to live forever?

  • yes

    Votes: 7 43.8%
  • maybe

    Votes: 6 37.5%
  • no

    Votes: 2 12.5%
  • no, and would outlaw it

    Votes: 1 6.3%

  • Total voters
    16
The bowhead whale and the tortoise are two possible exceptions which spring to mind, both being very long lived, aalthough Idon't know what their heart rate is.

[slight hijack]
If humans had unlimited biological longevity, they would live an average of 1500 years before meeting with a fatal accident...
and their memory would be full well before their 1000th birthday.
You can't teach an old human new tricks you see.
[/slight hijack]
 
I've heard this theory too, but as far as I know it's not true. Small animals have fast heartbeats because that is the most effecient way to pump blood through a small body; similarly large animals have slower but more powerful heartbeats that is more effecient for them. Or I could be talking complete bollox again.

The idea that every creature has a set number of heartbeats is an appealing one, until you stop to think about the consequences... every action that speeds up your heartbeat reduces your life span. Right then, no more scary movies or sex for me (chance would be a fine thing!) :D

Jane.
 
Random items collected from the web:

Life span of a mammal - average 800 million heartbeats

Life span of a whale - 120 years

Your heart beats about 100,000 times in one day and about 35 million times in a year. During an average lifetime, the human heart will beat more than 2.5 billion times.

It seems that the Lord Jesus has given each of His creatures approximately 800 million heartbeats to live by. In other words, an animal’s heart pumps an average of 800 million times in its life.

The notion that all animals die at the same age seems ridiculous if we measure age in years and months, but it becomes rather logical if we count the number of heartbeats. Professor Vasilios Valaoras claims that most mammals living free in nature, that is, not in zoos or homes, have accumulated about one billion heartbeats on the average when they die.

An average heart beats 100,000 times a day, pumping some 2,000 gallons of blood through its chambers to the rest of the body and then back to the heart. Over a 70-year life span, that adds up to more than 2.5 billion heartbeats.


This site gives a scientific analysis of the idea.

So, as a rough rule it seems to work - smaller animals, faster metabolism, shorter lives, but the figures quoted vary widely!
 
I'm sure I saw David Attenborough say the thing about heartbeats on TV one time ... made sense to me
 
So too much sex is going to shorten your life!!:D
Then I can add another 20 yrs since splitting with my ex:)
 
I thought too much sex was bad for your eyesight? :D














Odd then, I haven't got 20/20 vision
 
I hate it when people panic over something like this. If and when we invent a form of immortality we will also deal with the results of it. If immortality results in overpopulation, then we will simply require by law anyone getting the immortality treatment to also have thier tubes tied or some other form of semi-permanent contraception. Problem solved.
 
Eburacum45 said:
[slight hijack]
If humans had unlimited biological longevity, they would live an average of 1500 years before meeting with a fatal accident...
and their memory would be full well before their 1000th birthday.
You can't teach an old human new tricks you see.
[/slight hijack]
I heard that, but the figure quoted was closer to 500 years.

Oh, just did a quick check and it's 500 years leading an adventurous lifestyle...
 
LobeliaOverhill said:
Odd then, I haven't got 20/20 vision
Neither have I. I've been staring at those black lycra shorts for too long.
:wow:
 
Eburacum45 said:
their memory would be full well before their 1000th birthday

But then again, I had read somewhere that psychologists think that the ability to forget is a useful neural function (not a failing) for just such a reason. It's not just a matter of losing memories, it's culling out the dead wood.

But then, I suspect psychologists float all sorts of unsubstatiated theories.
 
No, I'm sure that the ability to forget is crucial to our continued functioning as a human.

Whether there would be any point living a thousand years if you couldn't remember your childhood is another question.

Heinlein's Lazarus Long just wrote everything down.
 
Let's not forget the hummingwhale which is as long as 2 buses, has a heartrate of 250 bpm and collects nectar from kelp, or the may-elephant which has a short but glorious life of 24 hours after hatching, eating 2 meals and finding a mate on the plains in that time; it's the size of a small cottage (maybe a bothy).
 
Answer to the mystery of life is four
Scientists have found a simple mathematical relationship that connects the whole of nature, from the tiniest cell to the vast forests of the Amazon.

The connections are all based on the three dimensions of the physical world - length, depth and width - plus one, making the number 4.

"Four is the magic number of life," says Dr Geoffrey West of the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico, a keynote speaker at the NZ Institute of Physics annual conference last week.

Dr West, a British-born physicist, and US ecologists James Brown and Brian Enquist have found more than 50 biological relationships, such as between body size and heart rate, which are based on numbers taken to the power of 1/4.

Much of the theory is based on mathematics that can boggle the mind of anyone who struggled through School Certificate maths.

Suffice to say that it centres on equations involving square roots and numbers to the power of 1/4.

In simple maths, says Dr West, "if you are 16 times bigger than your dog, your heart rate is half the dog's rate."

Average body size and lifetime are also related in the same ratio.

So in principle, if you are 16 times the size of your dog, you will live twice as long.

We do better than that, thanks to modern medicine, but the average lifetime of pre-European Maori was around 30.

Remarkably, combining these two relationships means that the heart of every mammal beats roughly the same number of times in its average lifetime - around 1.5 billion times - regardless of whether it is a dog or a human, a mouse or an elephant.

The implication is clear - we can't beat nature.

"This says that there is a maximum lifespan for a given size," Dr West says.

He and his colleagues have found that similar "quarter-power" rules govern every kind of life on Earth, from the rate at which single-celled bacteria absorb energy to the height of those Amazon trees.

They believe this uniformity is because every living thing is made up of distribution networks carrying blood, air and other nutrients first through big tubes such as the aortic artery and then through a succession of smaller tubes to the capillaries, which finally distribute the nutrients to cells.

Within each class of species, such as mammals, the size of the last stage in the chain, the capillaries, is the same.

So are the cells that we are all made of.

But as the organism gets bigger, the distribution network increases more than would be expected - as if it had a fourth dimension.

It is this increase in dimensionality that accounts for the 4. The 4 represents actually 3 + 1, where 3 is the dimensionality of the space we live in.

Auckland University physicist Dr Peter Wills says the theory developed by Dr West and his colleagues is widely accepted, even though it is still being developed.

"There is a great deal of interest in the approach he has taken," Dr Wills said.

"I don't know anybody who thinks it's nonsense."
 
but if we did live for 1500+ yrs wouldnt we get bored?
 
Is it true that bloodhounds have a shorter lifespan then they should have, because they "burn themselves out" with their powerful sense of smell?
I sometimes think, when you hear of really talented people dying young, that they burn themselves out, by packing too much in. Nonsense probably.
 
I had a friend (whose band i played in years ago) who was a positive worldwind of energy, multi-talented, very positive thinking and who had a 'life plan' He had several projects he said he had to complete before he reached thirty. They included living abroad, gaining two degrees, visiting India etc. because he said he would not live past this age. He accomplished all these things, but then was involved in a road accident, knocked off his bike and died in hospital a few days later from an embolism...at the age of thirty.
 
Who wants to live forever?

Time is GMT + 8 hours
Posted: 04 March 2004 1717 hrs

Scientist says new treatments could let humans live for centuries


SYDNEY : Humans could live for hundreds of years as scientists develop treatments to "cure" old age like any other disease, a US researcher said on Thursday.

Michigan State University clinical professor of medicine Michael Fossel said researchers had already "rejuvenated" skin cells in the laboratory and the potential existed to expand the technolgy to turn back the entire ageing process.

"We're altering the amount of gene expression and in skin cell tissue in the labratory we can actually reset the clock and take old cells and make them act like young cells," he told AFP.

"The question that we want to ask ourselves is 'can we do this to people?'

"The idea that you cannot reverse ageing in cells or tissue is wrong, you can. We just don't know if it will be useful clinically, a lot of us suspect it will but we haven't tested it yet."

Fossel, in Sydney to address a conference on longevity, said scientists had altered the way cells act.

"What we essentially do is reset the cells to do what they used to do when you were young," he said. "We don't change them, alter them, no we just reset them to do exactly what they did decades prior to what they're doing now.

"What sets the clock in you is a change in gene expression that occurs as you get older. It has to do with dividing cells and the damage they cause to all the other cells.

"For example, in your heart, when people die of heart attacks they die because their vessels have problems, and that clock is set right in the cells that lie in the vessels and what we can do is reset those clocks. So the
question is what happens when we do it? In the lab it works beautifully, but again it's different trying it in people."

He said the research had the potential to dramatically affect ageing.

"If we reset that clock we don't know what the limit becomes," he said.

"There's a guy at Cambridge who says it's 5,000 years, others say it won't change.

"Personally, at a guess I'd say it probably would be a couple of centuries but the way I often described the limit is indefinite, because really I don't know."

Asked if people should simply accept ageing as a part of life, Fossel said people already treated it as a disease.

"That same biologist who'll tell you that ageing is not a disease will be dying his hair and using retin-A for his skin and so on," he said.

"It's treating the symptoms of ageing, not the root cause, which is what I'm talking about."

Fossel admitted many of his peers were sceptical about his theories but said the idea of reversing ageing challenged fundamental concepts.

"I find its the medical and biology students who are the most receptive," he said. "It reminds me of that old adage in physics - old theories don't die, just their proponents do'."

Fossel, who will publish a book called "Cells, Ageing and Human Disease" next month, said scientists were constantly making new discoveries relating to ageing.

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/australasia/view/73871/1/.html
 
The secrets of long life revealed?

Why do some people live longer than others?

It is a question that has dogged some of the finest minds for generations.

In many cases, the answers appear to be clear - better diet, access to healthcare and exposure to fewer diseases.

But in others, the answers are less clear cut.

Why, for instance, does a Japanese man outlive a British man by an average of four years?

Why does a woman from Manchester die an average of three years earlier than a woman from London?

And why does a man in west London live six years longer than a man in the east of the city?

Scientists have put forward a raft of reasons for these differences over the years, ranging from lifestyle choices, such as smoking, to genes.

But a book by Sir Michael Marmot, professor of epidemiology and public health at University College London, outlines some very different possibilities.

Three decades

Sir Michael has been studying differences in life expectancy for three decades.

In the 1960s, he carried out what has now become known as the Whitehall Study - a study into the health of civil servants in London.

Life expectancy rates
1. Japan 81.3
2. Sweden 79.9
3. Canada 79.2
4. Spain 79.1
5. Switzerland 79.0
5. Australia 79.0
7. Israel 78.9
8. Norway 78.7
8. France 78.7
10. Italy 78.6
15. UK 77.9
18. US 76.9
Source: UN Development Programme

It found that the health of these government workers was closely associated with their rank within the civil service. In fact, the higher they were in the pecking order the better their health.

Further studies have found similar patterns in other groups, including academics and Oscar winners.

People with PhDs live longer than those with masters degrees. Those with a masters live longer than those with a degree, while those with a degree live longer than those who left school early.

Similarly, actors who have won an Oscar will live on average three years longer than those who were nominated for the award but missed out.

Sir Michael believes the pattern holds true for every group in society, from politicians to those living in poverty.

He maintains that our health and how long we live is influenced to a high degree by our social standing.

'Status syndrome'

Sir Michael calls it "Status Syndrome", the title incidentally of his new book.

"The evidence is overwhelming. It suggests that higher society position creates good health," he says. "People at the top of the hierarchy live longer."

He believes this social standing may be even more important than diet and healthcare.

"People usually think it's either medical care or smoking and diet that determine lifespan," he says.

"These things are important, but the evidence shows that they are only part of the story."

Sir Michael says our position in that hierarchy is influenced by two things - how much control we have over our lives and what role we play in society.

"Do they feel in control and have opportunities for full social engagement?" he asks.

Perhaps surprisingly, income appears to have very little impact.

"More money does not buy better health," says Sir Michael.

"Money is only important as a marker. Income per se is not important."

His theory may go some way to explaining why relatively poorer countries like Greece and Malta have higher life expectancy rates than the UK or the US.

Sir Michael believes that giving people more control over their lives and ensuring they play a full part in society will boost health and extend lifespan.

To this end, he suggests governments should do more to ensure all children receive a good education, workers have greater control over their lives and older people "are not thrown on the scrap heap".

He suggests more should also be done to improve local communities and ensure people feel part of a community.

Sir Michael says governments countries could do worse than learn from Japan, which tops the global life expectancy league.

A Japanese man can expect to live for an average of 81.3 years. This compares to 77.9 years in the UK and 76.9 years in the US.

Sir Michael puts the difference down to a much more cohesive society in Japan. It has much lower crime rates and a smaller prison population.

"The Japanese would argue that their low crime rate is a direct result of the cohesive nature of their society," he says.

"I think Japanese life expectancy is related to social cohesion."

The UK Government has been trying to tackle health inequalities for a number of years now.

The Labour Party set up an independent inquiry to examine the issue soon after coming to power in 1997. Sir Michael was a member of that inquiry team.

His verdict on progress so far? "There have been modest changes in the right direction," he says.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/health/3783543.stm

Published: 2004/06/07 23:40:48 GMT

© BBC MMIV
 
brian ellwood said:
I had a friend (whose band i played in years ago) who was a positive worldwind of energy, multi-talented, very positive thinking and who had a 'life plan' He had several projects he said he had to complete before he reached thirty. They included living abroad, gaining two degrees, visiting India etc. because he said he would not live past this age. He accomplished all these things, but then was involved in a road accident, knocked off his bike and died in hospital a few days later from an embolism...at the age of thirty.

Spooky. How did he know?
 
terrified though i am of dying, i don't want to live forever and don't think it's a good idea (or possible).

we would have to all but stop reproducing to avoid filling the world up completely, we'd none of us be able to remember our childhoods, and there'd probably be other effects that we haven't thought of. doesn't sound like much of a life to me.
 
I'd quite like to live forever. As long as no head hunting was involved. :D

Maybe then I'd be able to catch up with my reading.
 
Helen said:
Maybe then I'd be able to catch up with my reading.
You'd have to outlive the novel as an art form, I think.

As long as people are writing, I'll be buying books at a rough guess.
 
I read a lovely book called 'How We Die' by Sherwin B Nuland.

I understood from it two things-

1. The only ultimate cause of death is lack of oxygen reaching the brain.
2. All blood vessels are prone to silting up, just as rivers are. The smallest vessels eventually become impassable for blood and the brain then has no supply of oxygen. Finito.

Lots of other good stuff in the book too.

Doesn't explain how a person can 'know' they'll die at 30, though. :eek:
 
Some lessons for us all:

Chill out, be friendly, live longer

Life expectancy in Japan has almost doubled in 80 years. Justin McCurry in Sakaemura finds diet, education and personal contentment all have roles to play

Thursday July 8, 2004
The Guardian

The first thing Koji Saito does when I walk through the front door of his home in Sakaemura is laugh - a raucous guffaw that leaves his eyes glistening with moisture. Minutes later, he is at it again as we take our places on the tatami mat floor of his living room while his wife and daughter-in-law pour cups of steaming green tea.

Saito has plenty to be happy about. At 88, he is the picture of health, the only obvious concession to age a hearing aid in his left ear. He is still fit enough to ride his motorcycle, at speeds that horrify his family, up the hill every morning after breakfast to perform the backbreaking task of pulling weeds from the deep, dark sludge of his rice paddies.

Should he ever feel the need for companionship, unlikely though that is for a married man who lives with three other generations of his family, he needn't venture far. In Sakaemura, a village of 2,500 people hidden among the mountains of Nagano prefecture, north-west of Tokyo, almost half of the inhabitants, (1,061 people), are over 65.

The men of Nagano prefecture live longer than those elsewhere in Japan. In 2000, according to the health ministry, they could expect to live until they were almost 79, while the women, with an average life expectancy of 85, ranked third nationally.

Similarly impressive statistics have been recorded across Japan, where life expectancy has increased dramatically during the past 80 years. In 1935, life expectancy was about 45. By 1950, that figure had risen to 60. Today it stands at 85 for women and 78 for men. Japanese women live, on average, over five years longer than those in the US. Japanese men typically have more than four years on those in America. The number of centenarians in Japan has doubled in the past five years and now stands at just over 20,000.

So what is behind the phenomenon of Japanese life expectancy? Most theories have centred on the low-fat diet of fish, rice and soy products such as tofu. But diet is just one of the factors that combine to make for a longer, healthier life. While few scientific studies point to definite explanations for Japan's long-living population, there is no shortage of possibilities. Universal health insurance, achieved in the early 1960s, undoubtedly has an impact, as does the generous state pension scheme. In Japan, poverty in old age is rare.

Education also plays a role. "There is no illiteracy, even among people aged 70 and over," says Takao Suzuki, vice-director of the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology. "They are very sensitive about information on health problems, so I would say education is one of the important factors."

Suzuki says the benefits of the traditional Japanese diet have been made possible by economic development. Before the second world war, the average intake of animal protein was less than 7g a day, but has risen to a near-ideal 40g, along with a similar level of vegetable protein. While cholesterol intake is rising, it has not reached the levels seen in the west, where there are unprecedented levels of obesity.

The nanny state, guaranteed to cause hyperventilation on the British right, is alive and well in Japan. The elderly are an important part of "Healthy Japan 21", a collection of 70 public health targets the health ministry wants to achieve by 2010. They include reducing salt intake (from the current 13.5g to 10g a day) by persuading people to cut down on salty staples such as miso soup and pickled vegetables. "That is not all," says Teiji Takei, deputy director in the ministry's office for lifestyle-related diseases. "Even the elderly should be encouraged to take regular exercise." The ministry has devised walking targets for different age groups.

Local authorities encourage people of all ages to have regular health checkups. Officials in Nagano talk proudly of their network of health workers and volunteers who make regular house calls on elderly neighbours. Much is made, too, of the life-enhancing qualities of local food staples such as bamboo shoots and other root vegetables.

If contentment is the key, what the Japanese lose in terms of long holidays and spacious homes, they gain in extended family ties and a sense of community, particularly in farming villages of the kind found all over Nagano. "We know that social networking makes people healthier, happier and that means they live longer," says Kevin Kinsella, special assistant at the US census bureau's international programmes centre in Washington. Elderly Japanese appear just as gregarious as the urban young. According to government figures, a quarter of all over-65s socialise regularly with neighbours, with 20% preferring daily contact.

Kinsella suggests that lifetime employment, though under threat in post-bubble Japan, removes much of the stress experienced by workers in the more unpredictable job markets of Europe and North America and, as a result, produces a healthier retirement-age population. In 2002, some 4.8 million Japanese aged 65 or over were still part of the labour force, making up 7% of the total.

But even after the pieces of the longevity jigsaw have been put in place, the picture is still muddled. After all, the Japanese are not alone in reaping the dividends of economic development, such as greater variety of food, higher incomes, more leisure choices and advanced social security and health services. And though alcohol consumption is relatively low, the Japanese - particularly men - smoke far more than their G7 counterparts. Urban residents, meanwhile, with their long working hours, short holidays and cramped homes, are no strangers to stress, recognised as a contributor to potentially fatal illnesses.

The men and women of Okinawa, Japan's southernmost prefecture, top the national life expectancy table - thanks, experts say, to the subtropical island's warm climate and unhurried pace of life. But environmental factors do not explain the extraordinarily long lives of residents of Nagano, where the winters are bitterly cold and daily routines are determined by the unforgiving demands of farming. Theories abound, but science has yet to come up with a convincing answer. "It is a mystery to everyone," says Kinsella. "There is no consensus on why they live so long, as there is no real empirical evidence to back up the various theories."

If the government reaches its health targets, the Japanese could add a year, possibly two, to their life expectancy over the next six years. "I wouldn't be surprised if they manage an increase of a year, but two years would be a real achievement," says Kinsella. "There is no sign of slowing down in Japan." There certainly isn't. By 2030, the over-65s will account for almost 30% of the projected population of 117 million.

Some gerontologists argue that reductions in mortality could see people in Japan living an average of 100 years in about six decades' time. But the country faces new health threats that could knock it off course. Top of the list is the emergence of lung cancer and diabetes. While stomach cancer, the most common cause of cancer deaths 20 years ago, has declined significantly thanks to improvements in diet, screening and treatment, lung cancer is now a leading cause of death.

In addition, the feted traditional Japanese diet that sustains Saito and his neighbours in Sakaemura is no longer to everyone's taste. "Younger people are eating far more processed and fast food than their predecessors so we're trying to get them to look again at their eating habits," says Takei. Warnings about the dangers of eating too much salt have seen intake fall after the war. As a result, strokes are no longer the number one killer in Japan - that dubious honour belongs to cancer, followed by heart disease.

According to Suzuki, a new system of more sophisticated health checks is needed to take into account the different risks facing men and women. The key to increasing longevity among men is still stroke prevention, while for women, it is arresting the decline in muscle and bone strength. "This is something we can focus on over the next 10 or 20 years," he says.

Saito says he has little idea why he remains so active. Though he is just one of many Japanese to see out his eighties in robust health, his life story offers several clues. To begin with, he nurtured the habits that have ensured a healthy retirement decades ago, when, as a 15-year-old school-leaver, he started his first job, helping his father take parcels on foot from the village to the collection point in Akiyama - a daily round-trip of 15 miles.

He has never been a drinker or smoker, and eats three modest meals every day, seated at the table with the rest of his family. He eats lots of fruit and vegetables, and prefers rice to bread. His daughter-in-law adds to the list as she offers us his favourite "longevity food" - a selection of mountain roots simmered in soy sauce.

He never loses his temper, she says, and gives himself a regular mental workout by reading the newspaper and writing frequently to his siblings. He goes to bed as soon as he finishes his dinner, and is up at 6am.

But there is another side to his life that has little to do with sensible lifestyle choices or government health policy. "Look at what I have," Saito says as his great-granddaughter crawls into the room. "I'm living here among four generations of my family. We are all healthy and have lots of fun together. Whenever I see the children playing around the house, I think how nice it would be to be able to enjoy at least another year of this."

----------------------------
Dos and don'ts

How the Japanese live long and prosper
Drink in moderation and don't smoke. Go to bed early and get up early. Eat plenty of fish, fruit and vegetables. Avoid red meat, salty and processed food. Eat three meals a day, ideally at the same time each day. Eat tofu at least once a week. Drink green tea once a day.

Eat less as you grow older. Take daily exercise, even if it is just walking to the shops rather than driving.

Grow your own vegetables.

Prevention, or at least early detection, of disease, is better than cure
Take a health examination at least once a year. New screening technology has dramatically cut the death toll from stomach cancer in Japan.

Talk to your neighbours, however hard that may be
Japanese health experts believe that being active in the community and having regular face-to-face contact with friends and neighbours reduces stress.

Keep a lid on your temper
Laugh in the face of adversity.

Read and learn
Even if failing eyesight means resorting to the use of a magnifying glass. Take advantage of the courses on offer for retired people.

Work beyond retirement age if possible, provided, of course, that you enjoy your job
Millions of Japanese do this, and apparently feel better for it. Try to negotiate a semi-retirement buffer period before putting your feet up for good. Plan ahead and decide what you're going to do with all that free time.

Move back in with your children in old age, if they'll have you
Immerse yourself in the youth of your grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,13026,1255834,00.html

Emps
 
another Positive Attitude Delays ageing story

You may not be as young as you feel, but research has found that a positive attitude may delay the ageing process.
The University of Texas found people with an upbeat view of life were less likely than pessimists to show signs of frailty.

The researchers say their findings suggest psychosocial factors - as well as genes and physical health - play a role in how quickly we age.

Their work is published in the journal Psychology and Aging.

The Texas team carried out tests on 1,558 older people from the Mexican American community to examine whether there was a link between positive emotions and the onset of frailty

At the start of the seven year study all the volunteers were in relatively robust good health.

The researchers assessed the development of frailty during the study by measuring the participants' weight loss, exhaustion, walking speed and grip strength.

They found that those people who had a positive outlook on life were significantly less likely to become frail.

The researchers said more research is required to pin down why there should be a link.

But they speculate that positive emotions may directly affect health by altering the chemical balance of the body.

Alternatively, it may that an upbeat attitude helps to boost a person's health by making it more likely they will be successful in life.

Lead researcher Dr Glenn Ostir told BBC News Online: "I believe that there is a connection between mind and body - and that our thoughts and attitudes/emotions affect physical functioning, and over all health, whether through direct mechanisms, such as immune function, or indirect mechanisms, such as social support networks."
 
'We will be able to live to 1,000'

By Dr Aubrey de Grey
University of Cambridge

Life expectancy is increasing in the developed world. But Cambridge University geneticist Aubrey de Grey believes it will soon extend dramatically to 1,000. Here, he explains why.

Ageing is a physical phenomenon happening to our bodies, so at some point in the future, as medicine becomes more and more powerful, we will inevitably be able to address ageing just as effectively as we address many diseases today.

I claim that we are close to that point because of the SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence) project to prevent and cure ageing.

It is not just an idea: it's a very detailed plan to repair all the types of molecular and cellular damage that happen to us over time.

And each method to do this is either already working in a preliminary form (in clinical trials) or is based on technologies that already exist and just need to be combined.


THE ALTERNATIVE VIEW
Nothing in gerontology even comes close to fulfilling the promise of dramatically extended lifespan
S Jay Olshansky

This means that all parts of the project should be fully working in mice within just 10 years and we might take only another 10 years to get them all working in humans.

When we get these therapies, we will no longer all get frail and decrepit and dependent as we get older, and eventually succumb to the innumerable ghastly progressive diseases of old age.

We will still die, of course - from crossing the road carelessly, being bitten by snakes, catching a new flu variant etcetera - but not in the drawn-out way in which most of us die at present.

I think the first person to live to 1,000 might be 60 already

So, will this happen in time for some people alive today? Probably. Since these therapies repair accumulated damage, they are applicable to people in middle age or older who have a fair amount of that damage.

I think the first person to live to 1,000 might be 60 already.

It is very complicated, because ageing is. There are seven major types of molecular and cellular damage that eventually become bad for us - including cells being lost without replacement and mutations in our chromosomes.

Each of these things is potentially fixable by technology that either already exists or is in active development.

'Youthful not frail'

The length of life will be much more variable than now, when most people die at a narrow range of ages (65 to 90 or so), because people won't be getting frailer as time passes.

There is no difference between saving lives and extending lives, because in both cases we are giving people the chance of more life

The average age will be in the region of a few thousand years. These numbers are guesses, of course, but they're guided by the rate at which the young die these days.

If you are a reasonably risk-aware teenager today in an affluent, non-violent neighbourhood, you have a risk of dying in the next year of well under one in 1,000, which means that if you stayed that way forever you would have a 50/50 chance of living to over 1,000.

And remember, none of that time would be lived in frailty and debility and dependence - you would be youthful, both physically and mentally, right up to the day you mis-time the speed of that oncoming lorry.

Should we cure ageing?

Curing ageing will change society in innumerable ways. Some people are so scared of this that they think we should accept ageing as it is.

I think that is diabolical - it says we should deny people the right to life.

The right to choose to live or to die is the most fundamental right there is; conversely, the duty to give others that opportunity to the best of our ability is the most fundamental duty there is.

There is no difference between saving lives and extending lives, because in both cases we are giving people the chance of more life. To say that we shouldn't cure ageing is ageism, saying that old people are unworthy of medical care.

Playing God?

People also say we will get terribly bored but I say we will have the resources to improve everyone's ability to get the most out of life.

People with a good education and the time to use it never get bored today and can't imagine ever running out of new things they'd like to do.

And finally some people are worried that it would mean playing God and going against nature. But it's unnatural for us to accept the world as we find it.

Ever since we invented fire and the wheel, we've been demonstrating both our ability and our inherent desire to fix things that we don't like about ourselves and our environment.

We would be going against that most fundamental aspect of what it is to be human if we decided that something so horrible as everyone getting frail and decrepit and dependent was something we should live with forever.

If changing our world is playing God, it is just one more way in which God made us in His image.

Aubrey de Grey leads the SENS project at Cambridge University and also runs the Methuselah Mouse prize for extending age in mice.

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Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/u ... 003063.stm

Published: 2004/12/03 00:01:12 GMT

© BBC MMIV

I'd like him and melf to go head to head in a beard competition (or beard to beard).
 
And the opposite view:

'Don't fall for the cult of immortality'

By S Jay Olshansky PhD
University of Illinois at Chicago

Some 1,700 years ago the famous Chinese alchemist, Ko Hung, became the prophet of his day by resurrecting an even more ancient but always popular cult, Hsien, devoted to the idea that physical immortality is within our grasp.

Ko Hung believed that animals could be changed from one species to another (the origin of evolutionary thought), that lead could be transformed into gold (the origin of alchemy), and that mortal humans can achieve physical immortality by adopting dietary practices not far different from today's ever-popular life-extending practice of caloric restriction.


THE ALTERNATIVE VIEW
I think the first person to live to 1,000 might be 60 already
Aubrey de Grey

He found arrogant and dogmatic the prevailing attitude that death was inevitable and immortality impossible.

Ko Hung died at the age of 60 in 343 AD, which was a ripe old age for his time, but Hsien apparently didn't work well for him.

The famous 13th Century English philosopher and scientist, Roger Bacon, also believed there was no fixed limit to life and that physical immortality could be achieved by adopting the "Secret Arts of The Past". Let's refer to Bacon's theory as SATP.

According to Bacon, declines in the human lifespan occurred since the time of the ancient patriarchs because of the acquisition of increasingly more decadent and unhealthy lifestyles.

What do the ancient purveyors of physical immortality all have in common? They are all dead.
S Jay Olshansky

All that was needed to reacquire physical immortality, or at least much longer lives, was to adopt SATP - which at the time was a lifestyle based on moderation and the ingestion of substances such as gold, pearl, and coral - all thought to replenish the innate moisture or vital substance alleged to be associated with aging and death.

Bacon died in 1292 in Oxford at the age of 78, which was a ripe old age for his time, but SATP apparently didn't work well for him either.

Physical immortality is seductive. The ancient Hindus sought it, the Greek physician Galen from the 2nd Century AD and the Arabic philosopher/physician Avicenna from the 11th Century AD believed in it.

Alexander the Great roamed the world searching for it, Ponce de Leon discovered Florida in his quest for the fountain of youth, and countless stories of immortality have permeated the literature, including the image of Shangra-La portrayed in James Hilton's book Lost Horizon, or in the quest for the holy grail in the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

What do the ancient purveyors of physical immortality all have in common? They are all dead.

Prophets of immortality

I was doing a BBC radio interview in 2001 following a scientific session I had organised on the question of how long humans can live, and sitting next to me was a young scientist, with obviously no sense of history, who was asked the question: "how long will it be before we find the cure for ageing?"

Without hesitation he said that with enough effort and financial resources, the first major breakthrough will occur in the next 5-10 years.

My guess is that when all of the prophets of immortality have been asked this question throughout history, the answer is always the same.

The modern notion of physical immortality once again being dangled before us is based on a premise of "scientific" bridges to the future that I read in a recently published book entitled Fantastic Voyage by the techno-guru Ray Kurzweil and physician Terry Grossman.

They claim unabashedly that the science of radical life extension is already here, and that all we have to do is "live long enough to live forever".

What Kurzweil and others are now doing is weaving once again the seductive web of immortality, tantalising us with the tale that we all so desperately want to hear, and have heard for thousands of years - live life without frailty and debility and dependence and be forever youthful, both physically and mentally.

The seduction will no doubt last longer than its proponents.

'False promises'

To be fair, the science of ageing has progressed by leaps and bounds in recent decades, and I have little doubt that gerontologists will eventually find a way to avoid, or more likely delay, the unpleasantries of extended life that some say are about to disappear, but which as anyone with their eyes open realises is occurring with increasing frequency.

There is no need to exaggerate or overstate the case by promising that we are all about to live hundreds or even thousands of years.

The fact is that nothing in gerontology even comes close to fulfilling the promise of dramatically extended lifespan, in spite of bold claims to the contrary that by now should sound familiar.

What is needed now is not exaggeration or false promises, but rather, a scientific pathway to improved physical health and mental functioning.

If we happen to live longer as a result, then we should consider that a bonus.

S Jay Olshansky is a professor at the School of Public Health, UIC and author of The Quest for Immortality.

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Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/u ... 059549.stm

Published: 2004/12/03 00:01:33 GMT

© BBC MMIV
 
A thousand year lifetime would have several consequences;

for one thing the main cause of death would be violent accident;
this implies (to me at any rate) that a society of long-lived individuals would not be risk-takers.
They might in fact be over cautious, safety-obsessed, boring as heck.

The death rate and the birth rate would be low, so those people who wanted families could have children later in life to achieve that lower birth rate, perhaps around the five to seven hundred mark;
I assume they will still be fertile at that age. (this might need artificial intervention- but longevity technology is likely to be artificial and interventionist in my opinion.)

In an interstellar civilisation the birth rate can be slightly higher in order to allow for expansion; but even with spaceships travelling at the speed of light (impossible I know) the limits of population growth would soon be reached.
This implies that a society of long-lived individuals would not have complete freedom of action, particularly in the matter of reproduction and family size. I suppose it can be argued that no-one really has freedom of action within a culture, unless they want to see that culture fall apart; but it would take a lot of persuasion to convince some people that they would be limited to no more than two children over a thousand year lifespan.

To acheive this level of control implies an orderly society; either the populace are oppressed in the matter of family size- (the Fertility Board; the Family Planning Police) or people are motivated to adopt a low birth-rate voluntarily. This voluntary adoption of a strategy of low birth rate would be difficult for self-centred, short-sighted humans to accept; but if genetic modification (or other technology) can make us life longer, perhaps it can make us smarter, too.

If humans also achieve increased intelligence and responsibilty as well as long life then society would be very different; it would be difficult to still call them human.
 
Re: RYNNER, NOT RHYMER

Overall, it is better to choose immortality and be alive to work on this problem, than to choose to be dead, working on nothing.
John Newtol

I disagree very strongly. There's something very undignified about the inability to come to terms with one's mortality. There's nobility in accepting the fleeting nature of our existence and working for the good of our descendents rather than fighting to prolong our own individual existence.
 
Re: RYNNER, NOT RHYMER

Conners said:
I disagree very strongly. There's something very undignified about the inability to come to terms with one's mortality. There's nobility in accepting the fleeting nature of our existence and working for the good of our descendents rather than fighting to prolong our own individual existence.

Phooey to nobility - shuffle off this mortal coil when your alloted span is up if you so desire but I'm going to be dragged to the grave fighting and kicking (or at the very least, as I idly pondered whilst attending another funeral today, with Wagner pumping out of massive speakers with virtually naked women whipping my coffin down the aisle).

Eburacum45: Interesting idea about it making us awfully cautious. We still don't know the mechanisms that will be available. What if we can backup our personalities and have them transplanted into fast cloned bodies? It would make us a species of crazed risk takers - sky diving without a parachute so we can find out what it feels like to pan straight into the ground, going hand to hand with great white sharks, etc.
 
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