New Drugs May Extend Our Lifespan to 150 Years Pages 1 2 3 4 5 6 NEXT | |
Since I plan to live long enough to see the end of the universe, this is good news. As for the sociological implications, it might require a restructuring of some institutions, but that's hardly something new. The article mentions social security - there was a time when there WAS no social security, and in no small part because people usually dropped dead before it would be needed. Just as we created social security to accomodate a larger number of people reaching old age, so will we adapt to this change. | |
This sounds like a scary episode of Star Trek or something. | |
Question number 1 And then of course, why do we keep meddeling with nature's course? | |
Awesome. I'm not a big fan of the whole death thing, and I'm a huge procrastinator, so this is prefect for me. | |
"Eventually allow us to live for 150 years"...ok, the title isn't a flat out lie, but it's a little misleading. | |
Lets hope that these will be optional as this sounds like pure hell for me. 50-60 years sounds like a nice "life frame" for me. | |
Great.. That means working 'till I'm 120 years old... Only 95 more years to go!
Amen. | |
I'm not taking it. We should be dying at 35. We keep fucking things up and the planet gets worse and worse because of it. | |
You're all a bit optimistic to be honest. If such a drug were ever to be produced it would only be available to the rich and ultra rich. Discrimination galore I guess. | |
If it slows the ageing process, then fair enough. But if not, fuck off, i don't plan on looking a like a prune -.- | |
It's not even a case of "want" though, I can't see the current pension scheme surviving if people retired so many years before death, we would probably have to extend working to about 120-130 years old approx if we were able to live to 150. There's also demographic issues, we already have an aging population and this would only make it worse. Edit: Plus even worse, this could lead onto the horrors of immortality, a world frozen in time with ancients living empty hedonistic lives, offspring presumably banned to prevent the world exploding from increased population. I would willingly fight to prevent such an occurance. | |
My guess would be that instead of extending our live cycle, it'll stretch it out over a longer period of time. I kinda like the prospect of having my youth last till I'm 50 instead of 20. Then again who knows how the world will have to adapt to a longer life span, economically speaking, plus it'll probably be hell for our population problems. | |
Well this can't end well. Yeah, adding a good 10 years is nice, but when the extra and crappy 25 set in it's not going to be worth it. That and too many people living longer than they planned for isn't going to help. Those that just retired but now live an extra 30 years are screwed, they won't have the savings to last that long. Retirement programs are going to go bankrupt and we'll over-populate the planet more. In summary, people need to be able to die. We live too long as is now, wonder why people have as many health and mental issues when they get old? We didn't evolve to have lifespans that long. | |
I don't think that you really put some thought into writing that. What this drug could do is slow down the aging process, which means you could work for much longer, and 105 years would be the new 70. It doesn't just magically increase the length of life, making you get older than you normally could - aging process is what makes you less capable and weaker, so if you live longer thanks to this drug, aging process slows down too. | |
FUCK THAT. If we live until 150, the retirement age will be lifted to around 120-130. And if you think it's bad getting stuck behind a senior citizen in traffic now..... [EDIT] Ninja'd. | |
There can't be such a dramatic shift in physiology without severe side-effects/consequences. I'm not gonna volunteer for this one until they test it out, which, given the nature of the drug would have to be done on some life form with a shorter lifespan than humans. | |
Ah, this is good news. Another 50-70 years of watching the world progress. Could not ask for a better thing. Except maybe immortality. That's pretty cool too. | |
Sure, we can live to 150 in theory. We will likely die of Alzheimers or Cancer before we hit 150 no matter what you do to agings genes. | |
Considering Alzheimers and other elderly diseases will hit most of us around our late 70's, early 80's a few extra years means nothing in the grand scheme of things. That is, unless they come up with a cure to those diseases before we reach that tender age range. | |
Maybe if you stop the body decay and brain decay process, then yes. | |
The shriveling is part of the aging process which would be a lot slower with this stuff. You'd still be a demented drooling old fool at the end, but your healthy life would also be longer. And i suppose you could always stop taking the stuff, or jump (well maybe not jump) in front of a train when you want it to end. | |
Because Nature made a mistake is now sciences bitch now. Dog, he just went up and pimped slapped that crazy ho into submission. This is great, but still waiting on robot bodies, science, any time. | |
FUCK nature. We havent gotten to where we are by living in pact with nature. And even if we could certainly do more to not pollute everywhere I am ALL for science kicking the hell out of nature. I'd GLADLY live to 1000 years of age or more if I could. Death is too final and dull. | |
See my problem is we have about 3-5 billion too many. Many of which who would not exist except for the law forbids you from killing them. So with the economic strain it creates, the drain on resources we want to make people live even longer and keep pushing that number higher. Who in their right minds is that selfish to think that would be a good idea. Its bad enough that we have no natural predators and we coddle people so much trying to keep them from dying from their own stupidity, but no that wasnt good enough, we have to go and further extend a lifespan well beyond the point of the average person being able to do anything practical with that extra time. | |
If living to be 150 years old involves me being so decrepit that I can't even get up, I don't wanna live that long. | |
Disagreed. I think it would be made available to the "middle" class. To make the rich get richer, of course. | |
Okay, people stop working and get a pension at 65 (67 or 68 is also possible in certain countries). If this new drug hits the market will we need to alter the age at which you get your pension to 100? So let's do the math. Okay.. that's nuts! | |
Am i the only one who thinks this is freaking awesome? | |
Interesting. It's naive to think that only genes control the rate of aging. The rate of aging has more to do with cellular damage and environmental stressors (a word Chrome doesn't like apparently) than genetics, though that is definitely a component (there is plenty of proof of this, just look at people who go tanning a lot). Though, the bodies ability to repair injury could certainly help. The original source points out the worry of things like Alzheimer Disease and Dementia being a problem though. And I recall reading an article a long while back in Scientific American pointing out that the human body is not structured to live longer than more than a century. Our bone structures, circulatory system, brain chemistry, etc., are not fit to live longer than 100 Years(or so) without significant external help. Sounds to me that if you could live that long time, it would be a miserable existence. And there is an ever more burgeoning portion of the population that face significant amounts of time in places like nursing homes. This has more to do with the infatuation of a longer (but by no means better quality) life. You can keep it. I'll take my 80-100 or so years of total health and happiness then die a happy man. | |
This is the best news. I really want to live as long as possible. Fuck cost, fuck suffering, just don't let me die. | |
ok, fyi, when you're going to make an ironic joke about something, don't mention a fact that contradicts your joke (in this case, that they want to make it so that you won't retire till you're, say, 140) So no, the system won't be broken... who knows? might benefit from it. The real social/economic problem that could arise is the world population. I foresee limits/caps on the number of children you can have arising REAL quick in light of this drug. | |
Even if they were able to halt the physical and mental degeneration process, this prospect terrifies me. We're already killing each other over dwindling resources, people - how exactly would the additional massive surge of overpopulation resulting from such a drug help in that regard? | |
I for one see this as an opportunity to fulfill my life's goal of reaching 150 (this news item freaked me out a bit with it's precision) | |
Adjusting the scale of the average human lifespan would require a complete social overhaul. And that assumes this "Leonization" (think Ponce de Leon) is even affordable for your average schmuck. However, if we overcome those obstacles (doubtful), I imagine the potential for great strides in science could follow as those who were already trained and skilled could theoretically live/work twice as long, and thus have that much more time to develop a more complete understanding of complicated subjects. | |
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New Drugs May Extend Our Lifespan to 150 Years
The question is whether the extra decades will be healthy or not.
In the last century, the average human lifespan has increased substantially due to better nutrition and advances in medicine. Science is trying to make our lives last even longer, and a university administrator from Australia recently said that drugs which could accomplish that task might be seen in 5 to 10 years by tapping into the human body's uncanny ability to repair itself. The compound called resveratrol, found in red wine, has been shown to extend the life of worms, yeast, flies and even mice. If a drug made from resveratrol were to come to market, we might see people living to 150 years.
"I think there is real hope we can extend human life by some decades further," Professor Peter Smith, the dean of medicine at the University of New South Wales. He stressed that the goal is not just to extend life but to make sure that those years are just as fruitful as the rest of your life.
"The aim is not just to eke out extra existence, but to facilitate a longer healthy life," he said. "People aren't going to want to retire at 65 and spend many, many decades sitting at home."
David Sinclair, an Australian in residence at Harvard University, co-founded a company that is in the early stages of testing a synthetic molecule of resveratrol on patients with type II diabetes. The drug works by activating proteins which might tell the genes that cause ageing to stop working.
"Our bodies have an extraordinary ability to repair themselves," Sinclair said. "I think we're seeing the beginning of technology that could one day allow us to reach 150 [years of age]."
Depending on your point of view, this is either really exciting news or absolutely terrifying. If you have spent any time in nursing homes or with elderly relatives who have neurological disorders, you know that prolonging their existence may not be a blessing. The goal for these drugs is of course, to provide a longer healthy life, but I worry about the complications, not just morally but economically.
You think social security is broken now? Just wait until people can claim checks for 70 years after they retire.
Source: The Age
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