Posted on 02/25/2006 10:54:27 AM PST by voletti
The latest from the wacky world of anti-senescence therapy
DEATH is a fact of life—at least it has been so far. Humans grow old. From early adulthood, performance starts to wane. Muscles become progressively weaker, cognition fails. But the point at which age turns to ill health and, ultimately, death is shifting—that is, people are remaining healthier for longer. And that raises the question of how death might be postponed, and whether it might be postponed indefinitely.
Humans are certainly living longer. An American child born in 1970 could expect to live 70.8 years. By 2000, that had increased to 77 years. Moreover, an adult still alive at the age of 75 in 2002 could expect a further 11.5 years of life.
Much of this change has been the result of improved nutrition and better medicine. But to experience a healthy old age also involves maintaining physical and mental function. Age-related non-pathological changes in the brain, muscles, joints, immune system, lungs and heart must be minimised. These changes are called “senescence”.
Research shows that exercise can help to maintain physical function late in life and that exercising one's brain can limit the progression of senescence. Other work—on the effects of caloric restriction, consuming red wine and altering genes in yeast, mice and nematodes—has shown promise in slowing senescence.
(Excerpt) Read more at economist.com ...
My question has always been: Why?
> ... effects of caloric restriction ...
Strict CR can extend your life by 23 years.
Unfortunately, it feels like 230 years.
"Whether death will remain the ultimate consequence of growing old remains to be seen."
Yep. Weird.
Death is the consequence of life. The way to avoid is: Don't live.
I figure if humans lived forever, eventually everybody would do something to get life in prison.
"Whether death will remain the ultimate consequence of growing old remains to be seen."
Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice,..........
Nah. I'm with you. What other consequence could there be? Cylons? Obsolescence? The Orai?
Other than the obvious, that, is, i.e., eternal life, which is not a caloric restriction thing.
The fact is, we ALL will live forever, the only fact that remains a variable is where one decides they want to spend their time after they pass the physical world.
Vote Democrat.....
If one is fearful of the hereafter, then one would be fearful of death.
Don't eat, stay drunk, read Free Republic - and live forever!
"the effects of caloric restriction"
Worked out real well for the guru of caloric restriction, Dr. Roy Walford:
http://www.walford.com/
Dead, age 79 years.
(OK, it's all the fault of his stay in Biosphere that he checked out early...
well, at least that's the excuse)
Why not?
Don't die.
I find this horrible. This is just another fear of heaven story. I refuse to buy into all that eat less crap. I mean as long as you are not obese eat what you want. Out of four Grandparents, 3 lived well beyond the average 81, 80, 83. My Grandmother on my Mother side died at 72 due to cancer, but still had a relative long life. What is this with wanting to live forever. So the way I see it, I have another 40-50 years to live. That is not bad for a 36 year old.
Imagine the longest span of time that a person could conceivably live; billions and billions of years into the future, inventing ways to stop the physical aging process, avoiding accidents, continuing to travel to places in the universe that have not cooled down to absolute zero and always searching for new meaning in an existence within a universe already fully known to you.
Forever is infinitely longer than that.
You hit the nail on the head!
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