Photo: Unplash / Eduardo Barrios
Immortality sounds especially like a science fictionscenario, but there are actually scientists who believe that this could be possible in the future.
Or that you can at least live to be 1000 years old…
British scientist firmly believes in living 1000 years old
Science magazine Quest delved into the matter of aging. In the article you can read that the eccentric British scientist Aubrey de Gray firmly believes that people can live to be 1000 years old. He even thinks that the first person to live to be 1000 years old is already walking the earth. De Gray is a biomedical gerontologist, obtained his PhD in 2000 on research into aging processes and wrote a book in 2007 about the road to immortality. In short: he dedicated his life to the fight against old age.
But defeating death, how do you do it? According to De Gray, the key to this would be to repair all damage that occurs at the cellular level in a timely manner. Then aging and disease will not occur. Only accidents and murders can throw a spanner in the works.
De Gray founded the SENS Research Foundation research institute in 2009, where he works on his theory with a team of scientists. So while there are others who share his view, the biomedical gerontologist is not free from controversy. His ideas about aging are highly controversial among his colleagues and in 2021 complaints of sexual harassment were added.
👵
The oldest
Jeanne Calment is in the history books as the ‘oldest human ever’. The Frenchwoman died in 1997 at the age of 122.
‘120 years is the maximum’
Many other researchers are (unfortunately) nowhere near as optimistic as De Grey. Eline Slagboom, professor of molecular epidemiology at the Leiden University Medical Center and chair of the Dutch association for aging research, said to NRC that she thinks 120 years is the max. “People in Japan, for example, where people live longer than average, do not age either. And these people are the most resistant to aging. In all kinds of areas, biological, social, psychological,” she explained to the newspaper.
Although the average life expectancy has doubled in 200 years (from 40 to 80 years), the number of healthy life years has not doubled. People live longer, but also longer with illnesses. Slagboom is concerned with discovering how this can be improved.
The researcher sees a lot in lifestyle adjustments such as staying fit, getting enough sleep and eating healthy. Lifestyle also plays a role, she says. Long-lived people would look at life differently. “They have a positive attitude to life and can deal well with loneliness. They accept adversity and then choose a different path. They cruise through life with as little stress as possible.”
Fighting old age thanks to the animals
There are animals that can live to be five hundred years old. Some scientists therefore see a major role for animals in the fight against old age. Professor Andrea Maier and biologist Mátyás Bittenbinder discussed this earlier this year Beau. “If we extract the stem cells from organs, we can grow these organs in a laboratory,” Maier said at the talk show table. “Then we can put these organs back into the body of the person. This is how we try to help people live longer.”
Herman ‘de Schermman’ van der Zandt leaves the NOS and people think that’s a shame: ‘A great loss’
Did you see a mistake? Mail us. We are grateful.
2023-07-27 13:16:54
#live #years #future #science
