Aging may be inevitable
In 1997, one French woman Jeanne Calment died at the age of 122. She was the world’s oldest verified person, according to the Gerontology Research Group. Her daily routine includes drinking a glass of red wine and smoking a cigarette after meals (she also eats 2.5 pounds of chocolate per week). “No one else has lived past the age of 120 since her death,” she said Venki RamakrishnanNobel Prize winning biologist and author of Why do we die?. Indeed, while the number of centenarians is increasing every year, the number of people living over 110 years of age is not. “This suggests there may be a natural limit to human lifespan.”
If such a limit exists, it is a limit imposed by biological evolution. “Evolution wants to make sure that your genes have the maximum chance of being passed on,” Ramakrishnan says. “It doesn’t care how long you live.” This explains, for example, why there seems to be a correlation between an animal’s size and its lifespan – in general, the larger the species, the longer it lives. Most mayflies live one to two days. Monarch butterflies can live for many months. Bowhead whales live more than 200 years. Greenland sharks can live for more than 500 years Ramakrishnan said: “If you are a smaller species, there is no point in spending a lot of resources on maintaining and repairing your body because the chances of being eaten or starving are very high ”. “On the other hand, larger species will have the advantage of having more time to find mates and reproduce.”
However, some species appear to be exempt from this rule. Hydra, a small freshwater animal with 12 tentacles, doesn’t seem to age at all. Immortal jellyfish can even age in reverse. “It shows that aging is inevitable and that we can break our natural limits if we change our biology,” Ramakrishnan said.
That’s why it’s important to understand the biological underpinnings of why we age and die. current hot research topic. Scientists are trying to figure out how to manipulate cellular aging processes — for example, how to kill senescent cells (senescent cells that cause inflammation) or how to reprogram cells to to the previous state of development. Over the past decade, more than 300,000 scientific papers on aging have been published, while billions of dollars have been funneled into more than 700 longevity startups, including Altos Labs, Human Longevity, Elysium Health and Calico.
One of the most promising avenues of research involves the discovery of chemical compounds that can mimic the effects of low-calorie diets, recognized as one of the oldest ways to slow metabolism. aging process. One such compound is rapamycin, which was first discovered on Easter Island soil, due to its antifungal properties. “Then they discovered that it was also a powerful anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory agent,” Ramakrishnan said. “It is also an immunosuppressant, so it can also make people more susceptible to infection and slow wound healing. We need to find the sweet spot between no side effects and just having them [anti-aging] benefits.”
Longevity researchers are also familiar with a body of research showing that young blood can rejuvenate aging bodies — at least in mice. The discovery came when researchers for the first time surgically connected the circulatory systems of an old and young mouse – a technique called parabiosis – and observed that the procedure slowed the symptoms of aging. chemicals, extending the lifespan of older animals by 10 percent. Ramakrishnan notes that while scientists are still trying to identify the factors in young blood that cause this effect, “there are companies that have rushed and started supplying young plasma to billionaires.”
“While we’re waiting for all of this to happen, there are things we can do,” Ramakrishnan notes. “It’s probably similar to the advice your grandparents gave you. Eat right, eat a healthy diet, get enough sleep, and exercise. It turns out that each of those things affects the other two, so it’s actually a healthy cycle. If you do them all at once, it’s more effective than any drug on the market, has no side effects, and is free.”
This article appeared in the July/August 2024 issue of the magazine. British WIRED magazine.
