Eventually, you’d get Alzheimers, or some similar ailment, as your brain wore out. (Hey, Qadgop, is it fair to think of Alzheimers like this?)
Theoretically you could get a brain transplant, but then you’d cease to be “you,” so what would be the point?
For a little light-hearted perspective:
I don’t mean to sound offensive, but people tend to be a bit short sighted. Biotechnology is growing exponentially, and stem cell research shows promise in growing organs. Stem cells show promise in replacing not only organs, but teeth, hearts, and even show promise in allowing us to prevent and treat Alzheimers and even Parkinsons, and even hint at advances that will allow the brain to replace brain cells. Now this is why it is short sighted to talk about how it is “inevitable” to grow old and die of a natural death.
That is just a few links. If you are one that keeps up with biotechnological advances, you will see that judging how people in this day and age will age based on how people have aged and died in the past is a bit short sighted.
I think the issue on age at death might be better discussed interms of ranges or lifespan, than average age of death. For instance, many more people who live healthy may not bring up the mean that much, but they might bring up the top decile a lot more. Afterall, predisposition to some diseases is a factor in addition to behavioral issues like diet, exercise and smoking.
WHile the average Okinawan might eat fewer Calories than the average Westerner, I highly doubt that they restrict their diets enough to qualify to be considered under a calory restrictive diet. It involves far more than just not eating until you are full every meal. 1600 Calories a day for an adult human male that is 6 foot tall is a pitance. People ( especially my mother ) tell me that I must be living on air, yet when I do the calculations, I regularly eat almost 2000 Calories a day. Things add up faster than people realize.
As for the inevitable decay of human organs, there is nothing truly inevitable about it. “Natural aging” is little more than the effect of radiation and free radicals on a body that increasingly fails to repair itself. If you reduce the effects of those two factors below the level at which the body can repair, no aging should occur. Obviously we can’t do that yet, but I dont think it will be too long before we can now.
As acsenray says, all that is left ( besides accidents) once you remove aging and other defects is cancer. Some types of cancer are curable right now for people with specific genetic make-ups. I see no reason to assume that eventually they all will be curable for everyone.
So once you’ve removed all causes of death that are caused by flaws in our body, you are left with 4 things.
Accident
Suicide.
Homicide
The end of the universe. ( which might go under accident)
As for the economic impact of everyone being immune to dying of old age, obviously people will not be able to retire, but I see that as no big loss. Almost no one got to really retire before social security, and few will be able to retire after it. Human beings weren’t meant to sit their asses and watch The Price is Right all day anyway. I for one certainly do not plan on being able to retire…it was a conceit of a few generations of people in a special place in human history.
I was thinking the same thing QtM. IANAD but my mom was an ICU/CCU RN for over 30 years and here was her analogy.
The body is a machine. A very efficient, hardy machine, but a machine nonetheless. Think of your body as a car engine. If the oil is bad, replace. (blood transfusions, dialisys) If a coolant line is going to hell, you replace it (heart valves). If the distributor is going bad, replace it (pacemakers)
The engine throws a rod? Nothing other than full rebuild saves it. And every engine throws a rod at some point if run long enough.
Even taking out brain disease, at some point the other parts will wear out. They’re not designed to last forever.
There is also a telomere shortening problem that occurs seperately from any oxidative damage due to aging. Also, most experts consider ideal caloric restriction to be about twenty to thirty percent of “normal” intake. For a male that would normally consume 2,500 kilo calories to maintain weight that equals about 1,875 per day. There are days that I eat that even when I’m not dieting (today for instance I had two cans of Campbell’s chicken noodle soup=300 kcals + two apples= 140 kcals + three eggs cooked in pam = 250 kcals + a huge salad with no fat chesse and no fat dressing (no meat, croutons or bacon bits)= 300kcals + a can of tuna with
There is also a telomere shortening problem that occurs seperately from any oxidative damage due to aging. Also, most experts consider ideal caloric restriction to be about twenty to thirty percent of “normal” intake. For a male that would normally consume 2,500 kilo calories to maintain weight that equals about 1,875 per day. There are days that I eat that even when I’m not dieting (today for instance I had two cans of Campbell’s chicken noodle soup=300 kcals + two apples= 140 kcals + three eggs cooked in pam = 250 kcals + a huge salad with no fat chesse and no fat dressing (no meat, croutons or bacon bits)= 300kcals + two no fat hot dogs with low cal buns= 180kcals total kcals= and right now I’m really full (for diets I like to get down close to 1000 kcals). Thus, I’ve got to believe that on Okinawa with all of their vegetables and fish that 1500 to 1800 kcals is not unrealistic.
I notice you didn’t factor in anything that you drank-did you only drink water all day?
As for the telomeres, I lumped those in with “flaws in our body”. I think that fixing these will eventually happen too, but they are not a limiting factor for anyone but the oldest of people right now. A carefully controlled dose of telomerase may be able to fix this, then again it might not.
Or it may turn out that it might be possible to being practically immortal without fixing the telomeres at all. Though the only way I see this happening is the old brain in the jar hooked up to machines route ( though if the machines are more elegant and functional than the human body, this wouldn’t be so bad). Doesn’t mean that there are ways that I can’t see yet.
Both my wife and I have had a “zero calories from liquid” policy for over a year. The damm thing is that we were drinking between five to seven cans of soda EACH day (not including sweetened tea, juices ect). However, since going to the zero calories from liquid policy we haven’t even lost a pound! I know we are not eating more, and I don’t think we are exercising less. It’s a darned conundrum.
With regard to the teliomeres it approaches a “natural process”. That doesn’t mean that it can’t be impacted. For instance I seem to have read a recent report about a study on resveritol (an extract of grape skins and present in some red wine) in fruitflys or something where it drastically lowered telomere shortening (it may have been nematodes now that I think about it).
Yeah, right. And we were all supposed to all have flying cars and bases on the moon at this point too.
You cite exponential growth in fields like molecular cell research, etc. But exponential growth really doesn’t last forever. I think we’re still a loooooong way from understanding the mechanics of memory and nerve function on a molecular basis. And I think that it will require that sort of understanding combined with the ability to do trillions of individual molecular manipulations in the right sequence to truly master central nervous system stabilization and regeneration; at least if we want to preserve the mind of the person along with their brain.
Can upcoming breakthroughs extend the lives of some of us significantly? I think so. Will we be good for 250 years any time soon? I have my doubts.
Yeah, I have my doubts too, but I can hope. Some things like flying cars and moon bases aren’t a matter of technology though, but other factors. It is the other factors I worry about more than anything. Like the outlawing of certain biotechnologies.
I think it’s just a matter of time before such technology becomes possible . I consider, the leading contenders to be stem cells research, genetic manipulation/biotechnology, and nanotechnology. Of course in the course of human history even three or four hundred years is a blink of the eye. (I’ve said this before in a different post, but will repeat myself because I think it is important) If a person were born in say 1450, rather than 1050 AD they would not have benefitted greatly from any medical advances during that time period. However, consider the difference between being born in 1969 (the year of my birth) and 2419! I would submit that by the year 2419 (and probably sooner) we will be able to extend life almost infinitely. Even if this objective should take a thousand years what greater goal can there be? I mean this should be something that *most * people could get behind, that is to say creating immortality. However, one of the problems is that not even everyone supports the goal.
One of the “pre-nursing” classes that I had to take was called “Adult Aging and Development” during the course of that class we had a guest lectureer who was an MD/ Ph’D specializing in Longevity research. He said that he had encountered tremendous resistence from the gerintology research community which believes (he said) that we should try to improve quality, but not necessarily quantity (especially as it relates to the aging process) of life. He said that certain agents had already been identified which significantly slow the aging process in “animal models”. However, he indicated that some researchers when the applied to the FDA for clinical trials were told that “aging” was not eligable since it wasn’t considered to be a disease condition.
Incidentially, I asked him if there was anything that “he” takes based on research to “help” with the aging process even though he wouldn’t give it to others due to insufficient research (knowing that scientists often experiment on themselves). Anyway, he indicated that he takes ACE inhibitors, despite not having high blood pressure, since there was evidence that high levels of Angiotensin coverting enzyme can be a bio-marker for disease (he also referenced some small studies in the elderly that supposedly showed that ACE inhibitors can improve muscle strength and function and quality of life).