Ageing process reversed in mice

Well, here's the thing. Whenever this subject is discussed, somebody always says: "But why would we want to live longer? Death is natural."

And yet. I worked in hospices for the terminally ill, and I never encountered a single patient who didn't want to live longer, and who wouldn't have given their right arm for the chance of a cure. Yes, patients who were in great pain, or who had been suffering for a long time, were often resigned to death, but only because they knew they had no other option, and that to live longer meant to prolong their suffering. But if you took away the pain and depression that accompanied their illness, would they still be resigned to death? I really don't think so.

And look at the lengths - and the expense - that healthy people go to in an effort to look and feel younger. Cosmetic surgery, make-up, visits to the gym, nutritional supplements, diets, etc. People spend billions of dollars every year in an attempt to retain or recover their youth. Are you telling me that if there was a pill available that could take twenty, thirty, forty years off their biological age they wouldn't take it?

Whether it would be a good thing or not is a different question. But I think the reality is that most people would grasp at any chance to stay youthful longer and extend their life span.

"No... I think death is necessary. Painful, but cleansing."

I think that's just your morality kicking in.

But yes, I think that - in the beginning at least - anti-ageing treatments would be expensive and the prerogative of the very rich only. But things that are super-expensive when they first become available usually eventually become cheap enough for everyone to afford. Even space travel is becoming more affordable.

I don't buy the overcrowding argument. It would take hundreds or even thousands of years for overcrowding to reach a critical level (there's enough space in the Grand Canyon to hold the entire population of the world, with each person having enough room to swing a cat), and by then we should have colonized the Moon, Mars, space stations etc.

I doubt if the ageing process can be reversed, but I do believe that life can continue for a longer length of time.

The key to that would be transplants and prosthetics..

There are so many organs and body parts that can now be transplanted and also limbs that can be replaced with prostthetics.

Maybe even brain transplants? Much like a car, it's life can continue until a better model is preferred, and in that case we'd have to drop the old model for a new replacement.

Studying ageing in mice is fine, but here's a thought, why not study our humans who live into their 90's and 100's.

Just Googled "telomeres". Might shed some more light on this fascinating subject.

Would I take an age-reversing pill if it was available?

Would have to do a great deal of research on side-effects, cost, etc.

It still would depend. Would it mean 20 more years as I am now, or would I get back my body the way it was at 40 but still keep the wisdom that I accumulated over those years since I was 40?

I wouldn't mind having the body that I had at 40 and still have all that I've learned since. Wow! What fun that would be.

I would, if just to see the look on the driver's face when I show him my senior citizen's bus pass. 

No problem. More for the rest of us. 

Yes.

Dear Zak:

Truthfully? No.

I remember having a conversation with my grandmother when she was in her 80's. She told me she was looking forward to death. I was in my early 20's at the time and I was horrified that she didn't think life was worth living.

Now that I'm getting on in years -- I can see her point in a way I didn't then.

She said that everyone she loved had already died. She said that she knew her family felt burdened by her. She said the world had "moved on" from the value system of her youth and she didn't like the changes.

I imagine a pill could only (at present) address the second issue in terms of health and increased independence.. But a pill wouldn't help replace those already gone (making life not as attractive to their loved ones). And also, the changes she disliked wouldn't go away.

I will add another "reason" to hers. For me "autism" will end when I die. My son's care will pass to my other designated people -- but I will be at peace.

So no -- I don't want to live forever.

--Debutante

Just to be clear, what scientists have successfully managed to do is reverse the ageing process in mice. In other words, take "elderly" mice and rejuvenate them. Thus, mice that were the equivalent of 60 human years were rejuvenated - in a very short time - to the equivalent of 20 human years. The rejuvenation is physical and biological, so if it worked on humans a 60-year-old would develop all the physical and biological attributes of a 20-year-old (in other words their body would undergo age reversal). Their mind, memories etc wouldn't be affected.

It hasn't been tested on humans yet. Apparently the first human trials will begin next year. But it isn't "all theory", since it has been demonstrated to work on mice. The researchers involved seem to be confident that it will also work on humans. As I understand it, it isn't a recipe for eternal life, merely life extension (potentially by a couple of hundred years). There are aspects to ageing that they still haven't figured out, including the telomere problem you mentioned. But they're working on that. Whatever way you look at it this is a huge breakthrough. They've successfully reversed the ageing process in an animal for the first time. Not only have they proved it can be done, they've actually done it. If the technique works for humans it will obviously have enormous social implications.

Cloning technology has improved considerably since Dolly the sheep. Not in terms of cloning entire animals, which is still problematic, but certainly in terms of cloning body parts from stem cells for transplantation. This is still a new field, of course, but the technology is improving all the time. Remember when Christiaan Barnard carried out the first human heart transplant in 1967? The recipient, Louis Washkansky, died a few weeks after the operation; and subsequent transplant recipients also died within days or weeks of receiving their new heart. The consensus was that the technique would never extend patients' lives by more than a week or two. And yet today most heart transplant recipients live near-normal lives, and survival rates are high. Over 4,000 heart transplant operations are carried out every year. The "impossible" operation has almost become routine.