# In your opinion, how close (or far) are we from radical life extension? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 14, 2019, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-opinion-how-close-or-far-are-we-from-radical-life-extension/831140 "2019-03-14T18:08:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2019, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-opinion-how-close-or-far-are-we-from-radical-life-extension/831140/21 "2019-03-15T03:06:39Z")
I don’t know anything about recent research on aging. But I would guess 100 years away. The answer is going to be far more complex than some focused research on telomeres. The advances that have so far led to life extension — and there have already been very significant gains made over a pretty short time — are preventive health measures like water treatment, improved availability of nutritious foods, vaccines, antibiotics, earlier cancer detection, cardiac medicine, treatments for chronic diseases, geriatric safety measures and the importance of exercise and avoiding smoking and limiting alcohol. The fact that most people are aware of healthy changes they could make does not mean they make them. Life expectancy curves, increasing for years in first-world countries have probably levelled off for the time being. In some countries things like access to clean water could make an enormous difference. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2019, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-opinion-how-close-or-far-are-we-from-radical-life-extension/831140/22 "2019-03-15T03:16:29Z")
It could happen. In 80 years, in 2100, things will have changed massively. It could be that by then, you’ll expect to live in excellent health until 150 or whatever. But it could also be that the rare survivors will spend most of their waking time trying to avoid being infected by the engineered super viruses and super bacteria that killed 99.99% of the human race. You can’t assume progress and a bright future. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2019, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-opinion-how-close-or-far-are-we-from-radical-life-extension/831140/23 "2019-03-15T03:56:40Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > The Human Genome project was completed 15 years ago. > > I think it’s within a generation. They’re doing crazy stuff with stem cells these days. All the HGP did is read off all the letters of DNA. That means absolutely nothing about understanding how genes, proteins, and other biomolecules work together. We are a damn long way away from that. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2019, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-opinion-how-close-or-far-are-we-from-radical-life-extension/831140/24 "2019-03-15T04:19:53Z")
Two days after it’s too late for me. Seriously, though, I’ll take being uploaded into the Matrix if the physical life extension isn’t possible. If it’s a perfect simulacrum of reality (and whatever reality I wish to create), what do I care if a physical body isn’t part of the deal? ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2019, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-opinion-how-close-or-far-are-we-from-radical-life-extension/831140/25 "2019-03-15T04:33:30Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Two days after it’s too late for me. > > Seriously, though, I’ll take being uploaded into the Matrix if the physical life extension isn’t possible. If it’s a perfect simulacrum of reality (and whatever reality I wish to create), what do I care if a physical body isn’t part of the deal? Like with teleportation, plenty of people believe that being “uploaded” would mean that you die, even if the copy is perfectly identical. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2019, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-opinion-how-close-or-far-are-we-from-radical-life-extension/831140/26 "2019-03-15T04:34:58Z")
Realistically, I believe that to accomplish much longer lifespans, the human metabolism would have to be seriously slowed. Which would have some pretty big all-around advantages, in that we would have less impact on the environment (less demand for food, especially). The downside would be that the years would seem shorter, so the net result would be that 150 years might seem more like 70 to the individual. I am not sure how enthusiastic people would be about that. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2019, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-opinion-how-close-or-far-are-we-from-radical-life-extension/831140/27 "2019-03-15T04:34:59Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > Like with teleportation, plenty of people believe that being “uploaded” would mean that you die, even if the copy is perfectly identical. Ala “going to heaven”. I can live with that allegory. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2019, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-opinion-how-close-or-far-are-we-from-radical-life-extension/831140/28 "2019-03-15T04:58:06Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > Like with teleportation, plenty of people believe that being “uploaded” would mean that you die, even if the copy is perfectly identical. That seems like a purely emotional and, to me, irrational view. If you are uploaded into an artificial body and behaviorally indistinguishable from your old self in every way, memories and quirks and all, and your deteriorating old body is thrown away, what exactly has been lost? There is only a lack of continuity, a loss of consciousness and lack of awareness of the transition between one physical state and its reappearance in another. But fundamentally, is this no different than just going to sleep like we do every night, or even more dramatically, awakening from anesthesia? How is it really different than the sense in which we “die” every time we lose consciousness, and get re-instantiated every time we wake up? The real problem is that I think we’re a long, long way from being able to do this kind of transfer to a digital instantiation of a person. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2019, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-opinion-how-close-or-far-are-we-from-radical-life-extension/831140/29 "2019-03-15T05:09:15Z")
Well, we can’t be _too_ far away, because none of us are getting any younger! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![dolphinboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dolphinboy/32/330_2.png) [@dolphinboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dolphinboy)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2019, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-opinion-how-close-or-far-are-we-from-radical-life-extension/831140/30 "2019-03-15T06:58:19Z")
I’m not sure it’s even a worthy goal. What is the carrying capacity of our planet? If people lived to be 150 or 200 there would be a lot more people around to feed and care for. At some point, you run out of food and potable water for 20, 30 or 50 billion healthy, hungry and thirsty people… ---
**Author:** ![Grim\_Render](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@Grim\_Render](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grim_Render)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2019, 9:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-opinion-how-close-or-far-are-we-from-radical-life-extension/831140/31 "2019-03-15T09:43:58Z")
Aging probably has lots of causes. Most of them very complex. I suspect there may be the occasional low-hanging fruit though, that can add some years and health to the average. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2019, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-opinion-how-close-or-far-are-we-from-radical-life-extension/831140/32 "2019-03-15T15:27:08Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > All the HGP did is read off all the letters of DNA. That means absolutely nothing about understanding how genes, proteins, and other biomolecules work together. We are a damn long way away from that. No shit. I was responding to someone who said we “had decoded the entire DNA genome!!!” 25 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2019, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-opinion-how-close-or-far-are-we-from-radical-life-extension/831140/33 "2019-03-15T15:32:35Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > The was to manipulate a gene within adult somatic cells is straightforward; a viral vector containing the desired gene sequence within an RNA sequence to perform transduction on the target cells. The problems with this, however, are manifold; the body has a tendancy to reject foreign virions prompting an immune response that can end up with the immune system attacking the body itself. There is also the problem of insertional mutagenesis and other replicative errors, and just the essential problem of delivering the vector to all (or at least a vast majority) of the requisite cells in some way. And this isn’t just done to one discrete codon sequence like a gene therapy to correct an abnormality; an holistic anti-senescence treatment would have to affect thousands of genes and control gene expression in specific order. Even if the logistics of cellular delivery and tranduction were resolved, the vast quantity and permutations of “switches” to be adjusted and the uncertainty in the resulting effects are enough to make this a massively daunting exercise using any conventional computational model. > > The problem with the assumption of an incremental imcrease in lifespan is that the mammalian and in general, all animals more complex than _Cnidaria_ (jellyfish and hydorzoans) appear to have a lifespan that is inherently limited by an ‘epigenetic clock’ which is controlled by the gene regulartory network which is poorly understood because it is so complex and occurs at such a broad sysexpressive (between widely separated genes) level that it is impossible to observe directly or build a representative model, not just out of ignorance but because of the sheer multiplicity of potential inteactions makes it computationally prohibitive. > > There is really no basis at this point on which to estimate when or indeed even if the human lifespan can be be significantly extended or by how much. However, if the kind of control over gene expression necessary to do so existed, there is little reason it should be able to extend lifespan indefinitely, or at least to some limit of replication error. Estimates of when and how long lifespan could be extended are really little more than hopeful pleading at this point. > > Stranger We have been able to extend mice and rat life spans (those are mammals as well) by 50% IIRC, so I’m not sure where you are getting that there is NO basis for speculation at this point. It could be that this won’t or even can’t translate into human potential, but we don’t know that as yet and there are a lot of people working on this and a lot of money being put into it. I get the skepticism, but you often take that to the extreme IMHO and try and shut down any sort of discussion at all. I think I’ll stick with what I said there as having some basis in possibility on the time frames I’m talking about. Thanks for your input, as always. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2019, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-opinion-how-close-or-far-are-we-from-radical-life-extension/831140/34 "2019-03-15T15:38:11Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > I notice that some of the skeptical comments here assume that radical life extension has to take the form of somehow improving and patching up our admittedly fragile and highly imperfect biological substrate. There are probably definite hard limits to how far we can push that. Instead, I think it’s more likely that we move to incremental replacement of these vulnerable components with artificial ones, something we’re already doing. The ultimate accomplishment would be the transfer of the human brain to an artificial substrate, which I think is much further out that many futurists believe, but which, once done, assures nothing less than immortality. And that will be the end of the terrible waste of lifetimes of learning, knowledge, and wisdom turning to dust. It’s a good point, but I didn’t want to get into this aspect, and instead focus on actual life extension technologies. I know there is also quite a lot of research into doing just what you say here, and, frankly, if we ever did want to live ‘forever’, the only way to do that is by allowing us to upload our consciousness into either a really large simulation or computer system or robot bodies of some kind. Even if we could figure out how to slow down or halt aging we would still eventually wear out or die from something if we remain biological. I don’t even have any sort of feel for how far we are from being able to actually upload a person, let alone many people into a digital environment, but I’d say we are closer to the sort of ‘radical life extension’ I defined in the OP than that, at least at this point. Though, of course, breakthroughs could happen any time, and I know at least one billionaire (some Russian guy IIRC) is spending a ton on a project to do this by, again IIRC 2045. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2019, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-opinion-how-close-or-far-are-we-from-radical-life-extension/831140/35 "2019-03-15T15:44:09Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#): > > Oh, we can eradicate some diseases, smallpox for example. But there’s good evidence that the drive to eradicate polio may have given the world AIDS. No, there isn’t. To say that hypothesis is dubious would be to give it far too much credit. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2019, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-opinion-how-close-or-far-are-we-from-radical-life-extension/831140/36 "2019-03-16T02:13:18Z")
I know some folks practice extreme calorie restriction based on animal studies. Knowing nothing about it, I doubt it works well or makes life very enjoyable. Probably the idea of slowing the metabolism. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2024, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-opinion-how-close-or-far-are-we-from-radical-life-extension/831140/37 "2024-10-07T17:17:24Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > There is really no basis at this point on which to estimate when or indeed even if the human lifespan can be be significantly extended or by how much. However, if the kind of control over gene expression necessary to do so existed, there is little reason it should be able to extend lifespan indefinitely, or at least to some limit of replication error. Estimates of when and how long lifespan could be extended are really little more than hopeful pleading at this point. I realize this thread is a bit of a zombie at this point but a paper just published in the _Nature Aging_ open access journal addresses the question directly: [“Implausibility of radical life extension in humans in the twenty-first century”](https://www.nature.com/articles/s43587-024-00702-3), S. Jay Olshansky, Brian J. Wilcox, Lloyd Demetrius & Hiram Beltrán-Sánchez From that paper: > _More than three decades have passed since predictions were made about the upper limits to human longevity. Evidence presented here based on observed mortality trends in the worldʼs eight longest-lived populations and in Hong Kong and the United States, and metrics of life table entropy, indicate that it has become progressively more difficult to increase life expectancy. The life table indicators are not only still operational; they are, in fact, a stronger limiting factor to rising e(0) today than they were in the late twentieth century. Although some countries have approached or reached the ‘limits’ to life expectancy that we hypothesized decades ago[8](https://www.nature.com/articles/s43587-024-00702-3#ref-CR8), we found that, even in these countries, the rate of improvement in life expectancy has decelerated._ … > _This means that extrapolating the metric of life expectancy from the past into the future is likely to yield overestimates of e(0) and survival, because this method of forecasting ignores the fundamental relation between life expectancy and the demographic metrics of life table entropy and lifespan inequality described here. This is why forecasts of longevity should be based on anticipated changes in death rates rather than linear projections of the metric of life expectancy._ Stranger ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2024, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-opinion-how-close-or-far-are-we-from-radical-life-extension/831140/38 "2024-10-07T18:14:02Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > [“Implausibility of radical life extension in humans in the twenty-first century”](https://www.nature.com/articles/s43587-024-00702-3), S. Jay Olshansky, Brian J. Wilcox, Lloyd Demetrius & Hiram Beltrán-Sánchez That paper was referenced in a [CNN article today.](https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/07/health/live-span-estimates-wellness/index.html) People are very, very slowly extending the maximum age limit. With more and more people living past 100 years old, at least because of increasing world population, we’ll probably see someone live to 123 before too long, maybe even 124. The paper shows not much else has happened to extend life in the past three decades though so greater ages will just be the result of more outliers surviving a tiny bit longer. It has been only been outliers setting the maximum age at this point. Of course some radical breakthrough in medical technology will allow people to live much longer but that doesn’t seem to reach even the ever extending ‘next 20 years’ type of prediction for fusion energy and other dreamtech. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2024, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-opinion-how-close-or-far-are-we-from-radical-life-extension/831140/39 "2024-10-07T19:54:10Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > However aging isn’t universally distributed across the body. You may be able to slow your rate of heart disease or cancer, but your joints may continue to age like normal. So a 110 year old could have the cardiovascular system of a 70 year old, but still have the joints of a 110 year old. This is the real problem with the idea that we will “cure aging”. Like Cancer it isn’t just one thing that needs to be cured, it is a whole system of things each of which would need its own cure, and in some cases it may be that curing one of them may cause other problems. Congratulations, we have made all the cells in your body immortal, on the down side your body is now entirely composed cancer. Extending our lifespan will be basically playing a game of whack-a-mole where fixing the current leading cause of death will then just replace it with a new leading cause of death that we haven’t addressed yet. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2024, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-opinion-how-close-or-far-are-we-from-radical-life-extension/831140/40 "2024-10-07T20:12:20Z")
And,… It turns out that the “Blue Zones” are most likely a myth: (Towards the end of the podcast): > **[Signs of Progress, One Year at a Time - Freakonomics](https://freakonomics.com/podcast/signs-of-progress-one-year-at-a-time/)** > > Signs of Progress, One Year at a Time - Freakonomics [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-opinion-how-close-or-far-are-we-from-radical-life-extension/831140.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-opinion-how-close-or-far-are-we-from-radical-life-extension/831140.md?page=3)