Could We Live Forever? Or Even Come Close?

Technology, Along With Lifestyle Changes, May Extend Our Already-Increasing Lifespans

(CBS)  In a quiet Boston suburb, Esther MacKay has made it to 102 years old - and counting.

Born in 1905, MacKay traveled the world during a long career in the military. Lately she’s been honored as the Air Force’s longest-living chief master sergeant.

For MacKay, there’s no mystery about what’s gotten her this far.

"I had three no-no’s in my rules growing up," she told CBS News technology correspondent Daniel Sieberg. "One was no smoking. Two was no drinking. Three, no sex. That’s it, one, two, three."

Her rules may not be everyone's keys to the good life, but even if you don’t follow the Esther MacKay prescription, your prognosis for living a long life is improving.

Consider how life expectancy has increased over the last two centuries. An average man born in 1800 had a life expectancy of 35 years. In 1900, he would have made it all the way to 47. By 1950, average life expectancy was up to 68 years, and now it’s up to 78.

The trend is definitely favorable. But how far can we take it?

Although Ponce de Leon never found the legendary fountain of youth, today in labs like the one at the University of California, San Francisco, scientists are trying to stop the clock or at least slow it down.

In San Francisco, Professor Cynthia Kenyon is conducting experiments on microscopic worms. Their usual life span is little more than 13 days, but she has been able to get some to live as long as six times that by altering one specific gene.

"And here is the long-lived mutant when it’s also 13 days old," she said, showing Sieberg her handy-work. "But you can see, look at that! It’s still living a productive, active life. I would say it might be heading out to play tennis."

Kenyon believes her work shows that the rate of aging is not fixed. Rather, it can be slowed dramatically.

"The important thing for people to understand is that this is new," she said. "Fifteen years ago, and from 15 years ago on back, to when we were cavemen, cavewomen, people thought aging just happened. There's nothing you can do about it. That was it. And then along came these animals where you make a little change and they live twice as long ... Something we never thought can happen, can happen."

At the University of Wisconsin, scientists are using rhesus monkeys for similar purposes. They haven't monkeyed with their genes, but simply cut down on some of their food. For example, two monkeys are the same age, but one has eaten normally and the other is on a restricted-calorie diet and appears to have spent time at a monkey spa.

Calorie restriction research goes back more than 70 years to pioneering experiments on mice at Cornell University. Restricting your food intake does appear to extend life, although no one's totally sure how.

"If we base ideas on calorie restriction, in animals, and even in monkeys, which are relatively close to us, we see that calorie restriction slows down virtually all diseases of aging," researcher on aging at Harvard David Sinclair said.

Eat less, live longer? Easier said than done.

Brian Delaney is the president of the Calorie Restriction Society. He says it's easy to live on a calorie restricted diet, simply figure out what your normal intake of calories would be and then reduce it by 20 to 30 percent - or maybe even a bit more.

"But then you don't want to take it too far because then it's frankly starvation," he said.

Members of Delaney's group generally consume fewer than 2,000 calories a day and some go as low as 1,000 calories. Will they live longer? Is what's good for dessert-deprived monkeys also good for people?

"The CR diet could allow a human being to live to be maybe 135 or 140 years, but we don't know yet because we have not done that long a study in humans," Delaney said.

But of the course the main obstacle is: hunger. For most people, cutting calories is anything but easy.

Which is what's brought Harvard's David Sinclair to his latest project: trying to put the apparent benefits of calorie restriction - in a pill. He's now a director at a company called Sirtris Pharmaceuticals along with Dr. Christophe Westphal.

"We're not telling you 'eat whatever you want and then take our pill,'" Westphal said. "What we're saying is, 'Do the best you can on behavior, but we think we can turn on that same pathway with small molecule drugs.'"

The pill they've developed is based on a naturally-occurring substance called Resveratrol, which is found in red wine. But don't think you're going to guzzle your way to longevity: one pill has the potency of 1,000 glasses of wine.

So far the tablets are doing great things for mice. In a Sirtris video, two mice are the same age. But one mouse been taking Resveratrol and he is thriving. But it's not fair to call Resveratrol an anti-aging drug, Sinclair said.

"I sometimes slip and call it that," he said. "But actually, this is not about slowing down the aging process. It's about treating diseases that are caused by aging. And if we are successful at that, of course people will live longer, healthier lives."

The first disease they're targeting is diabetes. They hope to get Resveratrol on the market in about five years.

"Imagine a future where you're a diabetic, and your doctor prescribes you a drug," Sinclair said. "And the doctor says, 'Well, as a side effect, I have to warn you you're also protected against heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer's.' Well, you know, if we can get there, that'd be great. But that's the future that we're aiming for."

But to some people, like inventor Ray Kurzweil, a pill like that is just the first of innovations that he and others think could extend our lives for hundreds - yes hundreds - of years.

"We've gone 20,000 years without significantly changing the software that runs in our body. We have the tools now to do that," he said.

Kurzweil - you may have heard of his keyboards - foresees what he calls "the singularity," when technology and human biology merge. He's banking on the advance of technology continuing to accelerate, yielding devices like nanobots - microscopic robots that would roam your blood stream, curing what ails you.

The only problem for Kurzweil is living long enough to see it all happen. To that end, he carefully watches what he eats and takes 200 supplements throughout the day.

"You can never prove forever, because no matter how long you live, whether it's 100 or 1,000 years, that's not forever," he said. "But we can get to a point where as time goes by, you're really not aging."

But of course, mention life-spans of hundreds of years, and people usually seem to have one question: why would they want to live that long?

"Well, there's two negative thoughts that come up: One is, 'Okay, I'm gonna be a 90-year-old' as we think of them today, 'and that I'm gonna live like that for another 200 years,'" Kurzweil said. "And that's really not what we're trying to achieve. We're trying to stay in good health and really not age, so we can stay 30 or 35. We're not only going to have radical life extension, we're gonna have radical life expansion."

Dr. Thomas Perls at Boston University runs the world's largest study of centenarians. He's learned from subjects like Esther MacKay that long life isn't just a matter of genes. It has a lot to do with lifestyle.

"There is no such thing as a fountain of youth," he said. "There may be a fountain of aging well. And the fountain of aging well has to do with your good health habits, and knowing that things like smoking are truly terrible for you and can knock 20 years off your life expectancy."

And to nudge you in the right direction, Perls has developed an on-line calculator that's a bit of a crystal ball. You punch in your family history, your health and lifestyle choices, and it predicts how long you might live.

Perls, for one, is looking forward to many more healthy, happy years.

"It looks like I'll live to 94," he said. "And given what I know, that means I'm gonna be spending a big chunk of that in good health. I would love to do that."

Visit Dr. Richard Perls’ Life Expectancy Calculator at www.livingto100.com.

[einstein1966]

@singinrick:

"If you''''re taught there is no God, you will act out as such, holding absolutely no accountability for your own actions."
Actually the exact opposite is true. About 15% of Americans identify themselves as Atheist or Agnostic as of 2001. However, only .209 % (about 1/5 of ONE percent) of inmates in US prisons are atheist or agnostic.

"Secular humanism has DESTROYED our once God-fearing nation, the USA."
Opinion...nothing more.

"Our founding fathers would be beside themselves."
History disagrees. Consider this quote from Ben Franklin, one of the greatest thinkers of early America:

"The rapid Progress true Science now makes, occasions my regretting sometimes that I was born so soon. It is impossible to imagine the Height to which may be carried, in a thousand years, the Power of Man over Matter. We may perhaps learn to deprive large Masses of their Gravity, and give them absolute Levity, for the sake of easy Transport. Agriculture may diminish its Labor and double its Produce; all Diseases may by sure means be prevented or cured, not excepting even that of Old Age, and our Lives lengthened at pleasure even beyond the antediluvian Standard. O that moral Science were in as fair a way of Improvement, that Men would cease to be Wolves to one another, and that human Beings would at length learn what they now improperly call Humanity!"

Mr. Franklin obviously agreed that long healthy lives are a desirable thing.

[ecuadoriana]

"Our founding fathers would be beside themselves." Posted by singinrick at 05:06 AM : Nov 13, 2007

Why? Were they gods? It was never written into law that everyone in the US has to be a christian, or to believe in god (which encompasses jews, since they actually came before christians).

That is just what you want because you are too insecure to accept that other people can & will think for themselves. No one wants to be the geeky kid standing all alone. There is safety in numbers. So when you see your safety net start to unravel it makes you afraid. Those who are afraid lash out against their real or imagined enemies.

Pushing god & the bible & christianity on people will not lessen the evils in the world. As a matter of fact would you care to ponder the millions of beatings, rapings, & killings done against non believers ever since the beginning of christianity & in the name of christianity? Would you care to ponder how many "men of the cloth" r*ped children all while spouting the words of the "good book"?

So don''t give us your cr*ppy regurgitated lectures on how the world is going to h*ll because everyone is acting like primates & turning away from the bible & christianity. Last I checked apes don''t drive tanks & blow up villages in other countries all in the name of the almighty dollar- or oil barrel.

[ecuadoriana]

singinrick:

Blah, blah, blah...

Rather than quoting from the Big Book of Lies why not try thinking for yourself for a change? Quoting what was written by some control freaks a long time ago does not make you an authority on what a liberal is. It just means you continue spouting some one else''s thoughts & lies.

[grammawhamma]

How averages work...hmmmm, it must be that some people died very young and some died very old, that is averaging. There are hundreds if not thousands of contributing factors that make up these numbers. Numbers can be manipulated too, to suit someones needs. It''''s all just a bunch of numbers. --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted by Spaspy at 04:27 PM : Nov 12, 2007
+ report abuse

You are correct. Any statistics can be manipulated. If we averaged in the deaths of all babies that were aborted our life expectancy statistics would plummet dramatically.

[ecuadoriana]

What is the appeal of living forever? First off, I don''t understand why all the god worshipers would want to. I thought their whole belief is based on wanting to get on up there to heaven to hang out with the angels, the saints, & the big guy for eternity. Could it be their secret desire to live forever is based on their doubts about the supposed afterlife, because they know, deep down, that logically all that stuff in the bible is really control tactics used to ensure more money going into the church coffers & that people have been playing & paying into the church''s strangling hands for centuries?

Why would we want to live forever? We can''t feed, clothe, house, employ the billions of people we have right now! Is part of the "living forever plan" systematically sterilising certain people of undesirable traits (the government can choose from so many!) so that only those with perfect traits will be allowed to breed? Then the poor, black, homosexual, women, immigrants, jews, muslims (oh, I suppose I could go on with with our government sanctified bad apples) will be allowed to live forever as slaves?

Will there be applications, financial reports, & DNA samples to submit to be eligible for the live forever plan? Will you be required to be an ivy league graduate or will they allow any poor shmuck to live forever flipping burgers at mickey d''s for minimum wage? Oh, yeah that guy will make a great candidate for the "live forever as a slave to the man plan"!

This whole thing is ridiculous.

[ecuadoriana]

What is the appeal of living forever? First off, I don''t understand why all the god worshipers would want to. I thought their whole belief is based on wanting to get on up there to heaven to hang out with the angels, the saints, & the big guy for eternity. Could it be their secret desire to live forever is based on their doubts about the supposed afterlife, because they know, deep down, that logically all that stuff in the bible is really control tactics used to ensure more money going into the church coffers & that people have been playing & paying into the church''s strangling hands for centuries?

Why would we want to live forever? We can''t feed, clothe, house, employ the billions of people we have right now! Is part of the "living forever plan" systematically sterilising certain people of undesirable traits (the government can choose from so many!) so that only those with perfect traits will be allowed to breed? Then the poor, black, homosexual, women, immigrants, jews, muslims (oh, I suppose I could go on with with our government sanctified bad apples) will be allowed to live forever as slaves?

Will there be applications, financial reports, & DNA samples to submit to be eligible for the live forever plan? Will you be required to be an ivy league graduate or will they allow any poor shmuck to live forever flipping burgers at mickey d''s for minimum wage? Oh, yeah that guy will make a great candidate for the "live forever as a slave to the man plan"!

This whole thing is ridiculous.

[toolmangler-2009]

twisting metaphor to project personal
fears aka foolmangler

Posted by adt14 at 01:31 AM : Nov 12, 2007



I think my comment was very straightforward. I made an observation based on presented evidence, offered it for refutation then finished it with another obervation based on experience and common sense. It is not my fault that it ''apparently went completely over your head. And at no time did I attempt to belittle you.

[limestoneman]

The world''s already overpopulated, we don''t need to eliminate one of the biggest causes of death. Humans already lack an ecological role, there''s no need to cause more problems.

[spaspy]

How averages work...hmmmm, it must be that some people died very young and some died very old, that is averaging. There are hundreds if not thousands of contributing factors that make up these numbers. Numbers can be manipulated too, to suit someones needs. It''s all just a bunch of numbers. Who cares? I personally do not want to live forever. The thought of working that much longer to be able to support myself just doesn''t thrill me too much.

[spaspy]

All the money being spent on this type of research would be better spent on improving the quality of life for the less fortunate in our country, don''t you think?

[spaspy]

SharnCedar, you are pathetic! You need to get a grip. I suppose you don''t believe in God...how could you? You don''t exist, therefore you think he doesn''t and we don''t either. Sad, sad little man.

[bookwerm314]

Yes, I would like to live forever, or at least a long long time. Can''t wait to find out what comes next, good or bad.

I do however have issue with "life expectancy" numbers as shown in this article, displays a 2nd grade comprehension of the facts.

First off, there were people living into their 90s and 100''s a long long time ago. What has gone up is AVERAGE life expectancy. That means your "cohort" or group of people you were born with with live, on average, to a certain age. However, what is not addressed is that healthy folks could be cut down in their prime at 2, or 3 or 30! From pneumonia, a rusty nail, what have you. The same hazards we deal with ever day now did not have ready solutions or fixes back then, often were death sentences. What the article needs to focus on, and the science, is how to reverse or stop aging at the cellular level, whether that be Telomere based viral modifications, or the "fountain of youth". A REAL news story would have broken down the gains in longevity into the whys and wherefores, not just regurgitated limited and misleading statistical data.
So now the average lifespan is, say, 78. Well, if you make it to 70, guess what? You didn''t die at 69, or 68, or so on. Now you have a NEW statistical family, and you have a NEW average lifespan.. as the ones that died younger than you are NOT included, and they were pulling the number down. We each have a life expectancy that changes as we don''t die!

[ladyjaneg]

I don''t want a super-long life. I just want a good quality of life here on Earth.

[bioresearch]

Again a pharma is taking a compound which has been shown to be effective in its natural state and synthesizing it so the company can patent it and monopolize its distribution. Resveratrol has been tested since 1994 against cancer, diabetes, heart disease and aging with extraordinary results. Quoting from Dr. Betz in his 167 page study on biotivia bioforte and transmax resveratols, "There is no good reason why this compound should not be utilized in its natural form as a preventive against cancer, diabetes and neurological diseases such as Alzheimers and Parkinsons. A synthetic version is quite likely to cause side effects and fail to mimic the actions of natural resveratrol"

[pxlfx2003]

Ugh, I''m so sick of hearing about Ray Kurzweil when it comes to longevity. Will he live past 70? I doubt it. The guy is a moron who spends his days peddling his life-extending wonder pills and thinks he hasn''t aged in the last 20 or so years even though photos clearly show he has. He''s a nimrod who believes in a true nerd''s wet dream: the singularity, a.k.a., the second coming of the Lord in the form of a hard drive and processor.

[trueprophet]

RON PAUL FIGHTS BIG PHARMA
People have gotten wise to the fact that vaccines are contaminated with DNA fragments, viruses, fungus, mercury, and a cocktail of other poisonous toxins. Fleets of reputable studies have been published globally detailing the wide swaths of destruction caused by vaccines, including autism. So, now the establishment is on the offensive, attempting to bully us into submission. Big Pharma is one of the biggest businesses in the world. It is among the top three purchasers of advertisement in print, TV and radio. Thay have major pull. President Bush recently vetoed a Bill which would have forced Big Pharma to remove mercury from vaccines. If that''s not bad enough, parts of the so-called Patriot Act contains provisions that essentialy removes the spectre of civil liability against Big Pharma with respect to vaccines. This was done under the quise of protecting Big Pharma in case they had to quickly develop a vaccine to combat some form of biological terrorism. No other candidate understands health issues as well as Ron Paul does. He not only supported the Bill which would have removed mercury from our vaccines, he voted against the Patriot Act as well. Dr. Paul., an OB/GYN physician, who has delivered over 4,000 babies, has been the national leader in preserving our Health Freedom. He feels that Americans are justifiably concerned over the government''s escalating intervention into our freedom to choose what we eat and how we take care of our health.

[trueprophet]

DR RON PAUL UNDERSTANDS HEALTH CARE
Dr. Ron Paul., an OB/GYN physician, has been the national leader in preserving our Health Freedom. He feels that Americans are justifiably concerned over the government''s escalating intervention into their freedom to choose what they eat and how they take care of their health. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in order to comply with standards dictated by supra-national organizations such as the UN''s World Food Code (CODEX), NAFTA, and CAFTA, has been assuming greater control over nutrients, vitamins and natural health care providers to restrict your right to choose the manner in which you manage your health and nutritional needs. He introduced the Health Freedom Protection Act, HR 2117, to ensure Americans can receive truthful health information about supplements and natural remedies. He supports the Access to Medical Treatment Act, H.R. 2717, which expands the ability of Americans to use alternative medicine and new treatments. He opposes legislation that increases the FDA''s legal powers. The FDA has consistently failed to protect the public from dangerous drugs, genetically modified foods, dangerous pesticides and other chemicals in the food supply. Meanwhile, they waste public funds attacking safe, healthy foods and dietary supplements. He also opposed the Homeland Security Bill, which, in section 304, authorizes the forced vaccination of American citizens. The government should never have that kind of power. Vote YES for Dr. No.

[sharncedar]

I hate to burst anybody''s bubble, but you don''t really even exist. You never really were alive. You are a conglomerate of cells that have formed a colony for mutual survival. Part of the survival mechanism of this colony is an area of specialized cells often called the brain that have a built-in conceptual map that tells itself it "exists" in some sense, but it is not a fact, only a concept, that is, a fleeting electronic impulse carried from cell to cell.

That''s all your "existence" is, a fleeting trace of electronic pattern across a colony of independent living nerve cells. An illusion in the programming. There is nothing else. You are nothing. You never were anything else. There really is nothing that correspends to those concepts. Nothing real at all. The colony is real, the cells are real, the "human being", no.

What does it mean to live forever? That''s an absurrd concept, even more absurd than the idea of living at all.

[toolmangler-2009]

less adult diapers n space.
assteroid belt indeed.
Posted by adt14 at 10:33 PM : Nov 11, 2007



Your really hung up on this ''Adult diaper'' thing, aren''t you. you must have some one in the family using them. Be careful and don''t hate them for it, they don''t like it anymore than you do. Besides, you might end up just like them.

[incog-nito]

This article is way off the mark. Soon humans won''t be around anyway. Computers will be taking over.