Would You Like To Be Forever Young

[Im2Sexy4MyPants]

Forever young? The 5000-year life span

You might have used his payment system to buy and sell goods over the internet.

Now PayPal founder Peter Thiel may be about to repay the favour – by helping to add decades to your life span.

The American multimillionaire has become the latest benefactor of the Methuselah Foundation, a US-based body promoting research into radically extending human life spans and reversing ageing.

The foundation funds projects including a cash prize for the scientific team who can bring about the greatest rise in the life span of laboratory mice.

Its controversial founder Aubrey de Grey claims ultimately the human life span may be extended to 5000 years and beyond.

In a release this week Thiel revealed he had agreed to pump up to $US3.5 million into the foundation in payments up until 2009. The money is to be used to "support scientific research into the alleviation and eventual reversal of the debilities caused by ageing".

Better nutrition, health practices and medical intervention have significantly increased the average human life span over the past 150 years. Australian men can now look forward to living to about 78 while women can expect an innings of about 83 years.

But de Grey, an academic who studies ageing at Cambridge University, argues this is just the tip of the iceberg.

He believes there are seven main causes of ageing and by combating them people could eventually live thousands of years. The causes include the degeneration of cells, gene mutations and mutations to mitochondria inside cells.

According to de Grey, because scientific developments combating ageing are rapidly being developed people living today could enjoy extremely long life spans.

He argues if an individual can stay alive another 30 years there are likely to be new technologies available to extend their life.

The extra years the individual gains may be enough to keep them alive another 30 years to take advantage of the next round of life-extending technologies, and so on.

The views of de Grey are disputed by many ageing experts who believe much more modest gains in life expectancy are more likely.

However Thiel said: "Rapid advances in biological science foretell of a treasure trove of discoveries this century, including dramatically improved health and longevity for all.

"I'm backing Dr de Grey, because I believe that his revolutionary approach to ageing research will accelerate this process, allowing many people alive today to enjoy radically longer and healthier lives for themselves and their loved ones."

The promise of extra years of life is an attractive one.

It would mean more time to spend with friends, to enjoy life and better get to know oneself.

http://blogs.smh.com.au/science/archives/2006/09/forever_young_t.html

What do you think?

How far can we extend our life spans?


More Discovery

[bump head benny]

I told my mum a few months before she died that within 20 -30 years theyll have cures for all the diseases that plague mankind. I still reckon its true. Knowing my luck 2 weeks after I kick the bucket theyll prolly find a cure for death?
 

[Lovelee]

Id be happy to be forever young providing I could be about 35 yrs young.

[guest49]

Great!
Just what the planet needs.  7 billion immortals pumping out more immortals.

[Calliope]

but one of the side effects could be infertility

[bump head benny]

Id sign up for the pills if I could be 24 again bwahahahaha...

[ssweetpea]

To be honest I don't mind getting a little older. The damn shoulder that won't come completely right and the knee that does like stairs are the only real down sides I have come across so far. I don't mind the greying hair or the odd wringle.

I don't expect to live to 100 and I am not sure I would really want to either.

[Im2Sexy4MyPants]

Shoulders and knee sounds like your falling apart 


Yep id like to be about 24 

[Ferney]

No I wouldn't but I wouldn't mind being a time traveller.   I'd come back every 50 years to listen to the music.  That would be after I'd travelled back a few generations to have a peek at the ancestors.   

[k1w14ever]

Not me either,  I would like the time travel like Ferney though.  Meeting my relis, all some of the most amazing people in hsitory.

[Calliope]

When I told my hubby that I felt like a 25 year old, he told me I could have one if I could find one.

[bump head benny]

 

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

from the Associated Press....

How long can people live? New study suggests there's a limit.

By ALICIA CHANG | 1:55PM EDT - Wednesday, October 05, 2016


This February 12th, 1996 file photo shows Jeanne Calment in Arles, France. Believed to be the world's
oldest person, she died at the age of 122 in 1997. New research published in the journal Nature
on Wednesday, October 5th, 2016 suggests there's a limit to our life span and that the odds
of breaking Calment's record are small. — Photograph: Associated Press.

LOS ANGELES — Just how long can people live?

New research suggests there may be a limit to our life span — one that's hard to extend without some sort of breakthrough that fixes all age-related problems.

The record for the world's oldest person is 122 years and the odds of shattering that record are slim, according to an analysis published on Wednesday in the journal Nature.

“It seems extremely difficult if not impossible to break through that ceiling due to the complexity of the aging process,” one of the researchers, Jan Vijg, a geneticist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, said in an email.

Life expectancies in many countries have risen dramatically because of improvements in medical care and sanitation in the last century, and the maximum age of death has also increased, leading some to believe that there's no boundary to how long people can live.

In the new study, researchers analyzed mortality data from a global database. They found that while there have been strides in reducing deaths among certain groups — children, women during childbirth and the elderly — the rate of improvement was slower for the very old, those over 100 years old.

Next they examined how old centenarians were when they died. The record holder is Jeanne Calment, of France, who lived until 122 years old. Since her death in 1997, no one has broken her record.

The researchers calculated the odds of someone reaching 125 years in a given year are less than 1 in 10,000. They think the human life span more likely maxes out at 115 years.

Some aging specialists said the study doesn't take into account advances that have been made in extending the life span — and health — of certain laboratory animals including mice, worms and flies through genetic manipulation and other techniques. The goal is to eventually find treatments that might slow the aging process in humans and keep them healthier longer.

“We can greatly extend the life spans of many different types of animals. I don't think humans are an exception,” said David Sinclair, a geneticist at Harvard Medical School and a spokesman for the American Federation For Aging Research.

S. Jay Olshansky, a longevity researcher at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said it remains to be seen just how much further life span can be stretched with technology.

“If we succeed, current limits are likely to be broken. How much they are broken depends on the nature of the breakthrough,” he said in an email.

Studies of centenarians have found that lifestyle choices play a bigger role than genetics in their longevity and most were able to delay disease and disability until late in life. Among supercentenarians — people who survive to 110 years old or longer — genes are key.

Instead of searching for an anti-aging pill, people should focus on eating better and exercising to stay healthy in their twilight years, said Dr. Thomas Perls, professor of geriatrics at Boston University who heads the New England Centenarian Study.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SCI_HUMAN_AGE_LIMIT


Related thread:

• Why the heck would we want to live to 100?

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