Elimination of human aging only decades away, experts say

By Dick Pelletier

      

    Imagine playing soccer at age 200 with your great-great-great-great grandchildren, or catching a space flight to a vacation spa floating 100 miles above Earth. If anti-aging scientists reach their goals, regardless of your current age, your 'rejuvenated' body of the future would become ageless and remain forever young and healthy. You could live to enjoy all the wonders predicted for the 21st century and beyond.

    A growing number of researchers around the world believe that eternal health and youth can be realized. Aging is a destructive biochemical event, experts say, and scientists are on the brink of developing interventions for all of its life-destroying processes.

    Cambridge University geneticist Aubrey de Grey has famously stated, "The first person to live to be 1,000 years old is certainly alive today ...whether they realize it or not, barring accidents and suicide, many people in good health today can expect to live for centuries."

    Some may think de Grey is too optimistic, but others have joined the search for indefinite lifespans. "I am working on immortality," says UC Irvine professor Michael Rose, who has achieved breakthrough results extending the lives of fruit flies. "Twenty years ago the idea of postponing aging, let alone reversing it, was weird and off-the-wall. Today there is good reasons for thinking that it's possible."

    A growing number of doctors, geneticists and nanotechnologists, many with impeccable academic credentials, agree that there is no scientific reason why aging can't be stopped, and its effects reversed.

    "There are many components of aging and we are chipping away at all of them," added nanotech expert Robert Freitas. "Within two-to-four decades," Freitas claims, "the disease of aging will be cured."

    Futurist Ray Kurzweil, in his best-selling book Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever, confirmed that we are in early stages of an anti-aging revolution. "By 2020," Kurzweil says, "biotech upgrades will add more than one year of life expectancy to our lives each year."

    Even the US government finds the field sufficiently promising. Funding for "the biology of aging" has been running at about $2.4 billion a year, according to a National Institutes of Health report.

    However, some argue that we have overpopulation, global warming, limited resources and other issues to deal with, so why compound these problems by adding immortality into the mix. In addition, Leon Kass, former head of President Bush's Council on Bioethics, insists, "The finitude of human life is a blessing."

    Enthusiasts counter that as our perspectives change, and science and technologies continue to advance, new solutions will emerge. Space colonization, for example, along with improved resource management, could resolve many of the concerns associated with long life. They reason that if our universe seemingly goes on forever – with much of it presumably unused – why not populate it. In response to Kass, if life is supposed to be limited, then why do we strive so hard to prolong our lives?

    Aubrey de Grey emphasizes the following points on aging: "Today, we're stuck with the fatalism that we're going to get old and sick and die painful deaths. There are 100,000 people dying every day from age-related diseases, but this carnage can be stopped. It's a matter of deciding that's what we want."

    Anti-aging therapies expected over the next two decades could add 30 healthy years to the life span of many older people, bridging them into a time when technological help will increase lifespans even more.

    Experts caution though; until these therapies arrive, we must keep our bodies and minds as healthy as possible. This includes proper nutrition and exercise, and challenging our brains by participating in new activities. If we want to survive until technologies can come to our rescue, the responsibility lies with us.

    Can we permanently avoid the Grim Reaper? Positive futurists believe that by mid-century, most healthy people alive today will achieve indefinite lifespans. Anti-aging therapies will return many older citizens to a more youthful form. The smart, sexy, strong years, once thought long lost, might soon be reclaimed, as we get ready to experience what promises to become a most remarkable "ageless" future.

    This article appeared in various print publications and on-line blogs. Comments always welcome.