Longevity research edging humans closer to a 200-year lifespan

Scientists have made tremendous progress in the quest to understand aging and create interventions that could slow down or even reverse this process. Aging is a time-related deterioration that affects all living organisms. In human beings, it is an inevitable process of health decline that is characterized by the accumulation of physical, psychological, and social changes. Aging-associated chronic conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and Alzheimer’s disease are the leading causes of death among the elderly. The idea that anyone could reach the age of 200 years is considered a fantasy by most people. Doing so in good health? Even more ridiculous! A study published by researchers from Singapore in May 2021 inferred that assuming everything else went perfectly well, the human body would still give in within the age of 120 to 150 years. Dr. David Sinclair is one of the leading anti-aging researchers in the world. He is also a professor of genetics and co-director of the Paul F Glenn Center for the biology of aging at Harvard Medical School. “I think diet and exercise can get us beyond 80 for sure. On average most people I know that have looked after their bodies live into their 90s in a healthy way, unless they’ve got really bad genes or they are unlucky. That’s the minimum I think we can expect. Can we reach 150? I think that’s not going to be for everybody certainly and we’re going to need some major breakthrough in science to get there,” says Dr. Sinclair. The researcher adds that by slowing down the aging process in human beings, it would be possible to slow the natural decline associated with senescence and thereby extend into old age the health and functional capacity that is normally associated with youth. Should scientists manage to do this, there really should be no limit to how far the limit for human lifespan can be pushed. In fact, more researchers now believe that the first person to reach the age of 200 years has already been born. Dr. Sinclair also believes that aging should be treated as a medical condition that needs to be alleviated with drugs and other interventions. “We’ve been focused for the last 200 years on why people metaphorically fall off a cliff. But it’s just as important if not more important to understand what drove them to the cliff in the first place,” he adds. Researchers are adopting a variety of approaches in their attempt to slow or reverse the aging process. Some scientists believe that targeting senescent cells that contain a large number of mitochondrial DNA mutations is the key to slowing down the aging process. Others feel that stem cells and cellular regeneration are more important and should thus be prioritized. Past studies have shown that NAD+, a molecule that is essential for life and is involved in about 500 chemical reactions, declines with age. Boosting levels of this important compound has been shown to turn on the body’s defenses against aging. There has been also increasing evidence that common aging-related diseases have a mitochondrial component. Numerous ongoing mitochondria-focused research aims to lead to therapeutics that could delay the onset of cardiovascular disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s, stroke, and other aging-related diseases. Billions of dollars are injected into longevity research as startups spring up from all around the world. Even leading Silicon Valley executives are taking a keen interest in anti-aging research and initiatives. Jeff Bezos, the founder, and CEO of Amazon has invested in Unity Biotechnology – which is working to develop therapeutics to slow, halt, or reverse the diseases of aging. Calico Labs is a Google-owned biotech that harnesses the latest technology to increase understanding of the biology of aging. While acknowledging the breathtaking pace at which the longevity research field is growing, Dr. Sinclair says he’s particularly fascinated by work in epigenetic reprogramming. “There are major breakthroughs being made in the field over time. The one that gives me a lot of excitement and hope is our ability now in my lab to reprogram cells to be young again. We have a what is now a gene therapy but eventually will presumably be a pill that literally turns back the age of cells – what we call epigenetic reprogramming and that could be a treatment one day that literary turns the clock back,” says Dr. Sinclair. It is just a matter of time before this collective effort translates into clinical interventions that could help push human lifespan upwards of 200 years. More likely than not, the science fiction around longevity will indeed become science. Better yet, the little controversy that has been there about life extension has revolved around fears of overpopulation and possible effects on society. But scientists counter this critique by arguing that it may be possible (in the future) to postpone or eliminate menopause. This would allow women to space out pregnancies over a longer stretch of time and thus help decrease the yearly population growth rate. Statistics also show that the global population growth rate is slowing down and is projected to stabilize and eventually begin falling.