If someone was going to work to prevent death, what scientific approach should they take? What exactly must be stopped or slowed in order to delay or stop death? I’m assuming one would have to find a way to stop cells from dying. Beyond that, what more would be required. And why is this so hard to accomplish?
Interesting question. One that I’m becoming more interested in as my body hurtles through middle age.
At least part of the current thinking is that the cell mitochondria become less efficient due to waste products building up. Anti-oxidants are supposed to help.
There’s a thought that cell replication is effectively self-limiting due to things called telomeres. (http://www.telomere.net/).
Fixing these things, or reversing other causes of aging is hard because cells are insanely complex mechanisms whose processes operate fast enough and at a small enough scale so that we can't directly observe what's going on, much less understand and repair them.
There's a small school of thought that says that nanotechnology might provide us ways to go in and repair failing body parts at the cellular level. However this technology, depending on who you ask, is 20 to 200 years away. So eating right and exercising might be a good idea.
You can try flash-freezing systems. These theoreticall could keep you “alive” for eternity. Of course, there’s not much evidence to suspoect the future will want you around…
From some unreliable source that I can’t remember, there’s supposed to be a trade-off with the telomeres. Run out of telomere, cell can’t replicate. Too much telomere, get cancer.
The unscientific approach is: eat your fruits and vegetables, get your exercise. Don’t smoke, avoid unnecessary risk. If you’re in the armed forces, never volunteer. Don’t get fat, do be involved. Laugh with your friends, get and keep a good spouse. Go dancing or equivalent (equivalent would involve physical movement, social contact; camping is equivalent, sulking is not). Turn off the TV, it rots your mind as well as your body. Get enough stress to keep your physiology toned up. Pick struggles you can win. Invite people over. Respond to opportunities (oops that last is for success, not long life).
Maybe find a way to capture all those free radicals floating around inside of you. Take antioxidants and all that. Who knows? Jury’s still out on all this. Truly preventing death is almost surely impossible given the way we’re constructed.
I think there are current lines of research that could possibly extend our lives out a couple more decades, maybe giving us relatively healthy, active lives until our mid-90’s, and lifespans out to maybe 110 or so. If we cure cancer that will extend average lifespans by about four years. Gene therapy, growing fresh organs, etc. Going farther than that will require breakthroughs and new science, or radically new engineering like cellular reconstruction using nanotech. But that’s still science fiction.
On the other hand, I’m not sure there’s any real reason why we couldn’t build mechanical bodies to hold our brains. I believe decapitated primate heads have already been kept alive for fairly long times, and I seem to recall reading about a monkey head transplant. So it’s possible that the main limiter will be how long our brains can survive. Then again, maybe we’ll be able to grow new brain tissue and slowly exchange brain matter with fresh stuff.
Monkey head transplant? Really? I’d be interested to know where you read about that, and how successful it was.
You might want to check out Aubrey De Grey too. I’m not sure about the science but he is thought provoking. The link below is his reponse to an article at technologyreview.com. I believe his response article contains links to his web site and there you can find what he considers the scientific steps required to achieve massively longer life spans.
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/01/wo/wo_degrey0101805.asp
Actually, I’m pretty sure that all of those activities have been scientifically shown to correlate with longer lifespan. They still won’t work forever, and past your 80s or so, you’d better have good genes, but healthy diet, regular excercise and the rest should at least bring you to whatever your genetic limit is.
Here you go:
Frankenstein Fears After Head Transplant
Head transplants appear to be right around the corner. Now all we need to do is to clone brainless bodies, and we can replace everything except the head.
I wonder how long an old brain would live if it was connected to a young, healthy body?
Here you go:
Frankenstein Fears After Head Transplant
Head transplants appear to be right around the corner. Now all we need to do is to clone brainless bodies, and we can replace everything except the head.
I wonder how long an old brain would live if it was connected to a young, healthy body?
Got cancer? Throw out the old body, grow a new one!
The only currently known method for extending life span is dietary restriction. And even this is actually theoretical, but it’s a pretty sure bet. As Roy Walford once put it, “for dietary restriction not to work, we would have to discard everything we know about the aging process.”
The maximum life span for our species is probably about 120 years. But only a half dozen or so people have ever achieved this age, and virtually all humans exhibit marked deterioration in appearance and physical functioning by half this age. Since no genetic basis for this phenomenon has ever been demonstrated, most gerontologists agree that it must represent some sort of accumulated damage process. The current thinking on the subject is that this damage occurs from wear and tear on the body from the metabolism of glucose, and to a lesser extent, oxygen. It is theorized that dietary restriction extends life span by lessening and decelerating this process.
This will venture into IMHO territory, but anyway…
I read an aphorism which said (paraphrasing): everybody wants a long life, but no one wants to grow old.
I guess average life expectancy in most western countries right now is about 70-80 years. But statistics is slippery, and that number depends on a whole lot of people kicking the bucket in their 50’s from cancer, HIV, cardiovascular deseases ASF. Chances are, if you reach 70 at a fairly healthy state, you’re gonna be 90.
So, if we extend that to 120, that means 30 more years, thirty, with a stroller and forgetting if you had breakfast and not remembering the names of all great grand kids. Hence, everybody wants a long life, but no one wants to grow old.
Longevity might seem like a great idea, but shouldn’t quality of life count. What’s the point of adding 10 or 30 years of crappy living to your life span?
Back to GQ territory:
The Spanish used to have a long life expectancy, in spite of smoking like crazy and heavy alcohol use. But they had a healthy diet, a non stressful life style, ate plenty of sea food, avoided dairy products, and (due to poverty) walked to work, instead of driving. This confirms that healthy eating and excercise are paramount for a long and healthy life. With that down, you can pretty much abuse a lot of other things and still live well.
And get a dog. Pet owners life longer and have better health.