Imagine a world where people live to celebrate their 500th birthday; where sprightly, smooth-skinned men and women with the agility and metabolism of 30-year-olds roam the planet, popping pills that prevent the curse of ageing.
It may sound like a fantasy (a rather gruesome one at that) but for longevity scientist Alex Zhavoronkov, it’s a fully realisable scenario of the not-too-distant future.
Not all his fellow scientists agree with him, though. Dr Nazif Alic, research fellow at UCL’s Institute of Ageing, says: “For the moment there’s no indication that living to 500 could be achieved in humans.
“There’s not been a single experiment I’ve seen where ageing has been eliminated; it’s only delayed and the severity of disease reduced.”
He is equally sceptical of people living to 150. “That’s more or less doubling the human lifespan.
“That size of an effect seems quite unlikely at the moment.”
Undeterred, Zhavoronkov keeps on taking his medicine. Up to 90% of the pills he takes are over-the-counter drugs, supplements, minerals and vitamins, which he consumes in high concentrations. While he is reluctant to disclose the details (out of fear that people would copy his regime without fully understanding it), he will say that they are, variously, metabolic regulators, anti-inflammatory agents and central nervous system regulators; all are factors in the ageing process and things that he wants to target earlier “before ageing has developed too far”.
But what of potentially fatal diseases, such as cancer?
Zhavoronkov says most anti-ageing regimens he takes are also anticancer regimens.
He also takes care to avoid obvious carcinogens.
“I try to avoid anything with trans-fats,” he says, “and I try to avoid smoking, although I don’t think that a cigarette a day would hurt anybody. Avoiding sun is a major thing.
“I try to avoid sunlight as much as possible. A lot of cancers are induced by radiation.”
Thus he wears tinted glasses to protect his eyes from ultraviolet light.
Zhavoronkov believes the world’s system of healthcare and the pharmaceutical industry need to move away from cure and towards prevention.
But all of it surely begs the question, why would anyone ever want to live to 150, or beyond?
For Zhavoronkov, it’s not about having age-defying beautiful skin.
Curing ageing is a philosophical quest, and he believes it will make us all better people in the long run.
“Before global warming, fighting global hunger, going to space, the top priority needs to be stopping ageing.
“When people are freed from worrying about getting old, they will have more time to be altruistic. Then we can go after and solve those other things.” — The Daily Telegraph
The elixir of youth
It may sound like a fantasy (a rather gruesome one at that) but for longevity scientist Alex Zhavoronkov, it’s a fully realisable scenario of the not-too-distant future.
Not all his fellow scientists agree with him, though. Dr Nazif Alic, research fellow at UCL’s Institute of Ageing, says: “For the moment there’s no indication that living to 500 could be achieved in humans.
“There’s not been a single experiment I’ve seen where ageing has been eliminated; it’s only delayed and the severity of disease reduced.”
He is equally sceptical of people living to 150. “That’s more or less doubling the human lifespan.
“That size of an effect seems quite unlikely at the moment.”
Undeterred, Zhavoronkov keeps on taking his medicine. Up to 90% of the pills he takes are over-the-counter drugs, supplements, minerals and vitamins, which he consumes in high concentrations. While he is reluctant to disclose the details (out of fear that people would copy his regime without fully understanding it), he will say that they are, variously, metabolic regulators, anti-inflammatory agents and central nervous system regulators; all are factors in the ageing process and things that he wants to target earlier “before ageing has developed too far”.
But what of potentially fatal diseases, such as cancer?
Zhavoronkov says most anti-ageing regimens he takes are also anticancer regimens.
He also takes care to avoid obvious carcinogens.
“I try to avoid anything with trans-fats,” he says, “and I try to avoid smoking, although I don’t think that a cigarette a day would hurt anybody. Avoiding sun is a major thing.
“I try to avoid sunlight as much as possible. A lot of cancers are induced by radiation.”
Thus he wears tinted glasses to protect his eyes from ultraviolet light.
Zhavoronkov believes the world’s system of healthcare and the pharmaceutical industry need to move away from cure and towards prevention.
But all of it surely begs the question, why would anyone ever want to live to 150, or beyond?
For Zhavoronkov, it’s not about having age-defying beautiful skin.
Curing ageing is a philosophical quest, and he believes it will make us all better people in the long run.
“Before global warming, fighting global hunger, going to space, the top priority needs to be stopping ageing.
“When people are freed from worrying about getting old, they will have more time to be altruistic. Then we can go after and solve those other things.” — The Daily Telegraph
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