Living Forever...Would You Want To??

Ponce de Leon seeks the Fountain of Youth

Everyone has grown up hearing fantasy stories about the "fountain of youth." We are still far from finding the fabled Fountain, but today the real question is quickly becoming “Would you really want to live forever?” With tremendous advances in the world of medicine, we will one day be able to drastically slow down the aging process in a human being. Scientists have already discovered over 70 individual genes that are directly involved with the human aging process. Many people would immediately wonder why we would even want to slow down the aging process when we are overpopulated as it is. Well, the population in Europe for example is some sense imploding right now, with the average family having 1.5 children. Countries like Austria, Italy, Germany, Switzerland have populations that are essentially collapsing. So increasing prosperity and life spans has actually caused slowed down population growth.

Kings and queens of old have always wanted to live longer and discover the fountain of youth. This is actually how the state of Florida was discovered. Ponce de Leon heard Native Americans speak of a legendary, magical spring whose water was believed to make older people young again. While seeking the great, mythical and fabled fountain, his ships landed on Florida’s east coast near present-day St. Augustine. People have always been fascinated by the thought of being able to extend their days. Now, it may in fact be within our grasp within 20 to 30 years as we identify more and more genes involved in the aging process. If you take the genome of an older person and the genome of a younger person—in a computer you can compare the genomes and see where significant genetic changes are localized. We can further identify certain key genes that for example control the oxidation process and the biological clock.

Scientists are already experimenting with longevity processes in the laboratory. We can now put human skin cells in a petri dish and hit them with telomeres (an enzyme) allowing the cell to divide indefinitely. (Telomeres are a region of repetitive DNA at the end of a chromosome, which protects the end of the chromosome from deterioration). Of course, being able to expand this process out of the petri dish to something like the human body is beyond our capability at least for now. But in the future we may be able to:
-Reset the biological clock
-Slow down the oxidation process
-Increase cell repair mechanisms &
-Eliminate the build-up of genetic errors in the cell.

In the coming years we'll start hearing more and more explosive results as aging research is refined. Many people would then wonder about the possibility of reversing the aging process (i.e. if someone who is 60 can become 30 again) Well, we may be able to reset the biological clock by which we will be able to rejuvenate human tissue. We know that for example, sex hormones can rejuvenate tissue. But the problem with this, as many women know—is cancer. In some sense if you run high octane gas in your Ferrari it’s going to run a lot better, but at the same time the car itself will receive more wear and tear as a direct result; and genetic wear and tear is called cancer. So even though estrogen (for women) and androgen (for males) will make us look younger, rejuvenate our immune system, increase muscle and decrease animal fat, the price we pay is that we are making ourselves go hyper-active and there is a process by which these cells can throw out a few “gears and bolts”. This is cancer. But as we start to understand cancer more and more. we may be able to have the benefits of sex hormones without the after effects of cancer.

So as we understand more and more which genes are involved with each part of the aging process, we will be able to tweak things around a bit. There will be tremendous advances in gene therapy and being able to analyze genes in general. We already have a DNA chip which is a small computer chip that is etched with tiny micro-cracks. When you wash a fluid such as blood over the chip, it will register genes by looking at the DNA that falls into the cracks. This simple gene analysis takes mere minutes whereas it used to take months and sometimes years to get a DNA analysis. It’s these types of breakthroughs that are revolutionizing medicine and giving us a leg-up to understanding how our bodies internal processes work.
 But back to my original question: Would you really want to live forever??