Jan H. J. Hoeijmakers in Nature: We are born; we grow up; we become an adult and perhaps reproduce. Then we might increasingly develop ailments or chronic diseases, before we decline and eventually — inevitably — die. These are the facts of life, at least hitherto, however much many of us might wish for them to be otherwise.
Perhaps things could be different. Progress in ageing research has opened up the prospect that ageing and death might be deferred, possibly even for hundreds of years, according to some people. Is that wishful thinking? The timely, illuminating book Why We Die by 2009 chemistry Nobel co-laureate Venki Ramakrishnan explains the science — and, importantly, separates fact from fiction.
Over the past century or so, better hygiene, improved living conditions and health-care innovations, such as antibiotics and vaccines, have seen human life expectancy more than double. But the maximal lifespan has hit a ceiling at about 120 years.
And towards the end of their generally long lives, many people nowadays spend an extended period beset by the problems of ageing.
Stop the clock
Halting ageing and death has been the subject of speculation, beliefs and myths for millennia. The great pyramids in ancient Egypt were built by people who thought the pharaohs would find new life; the quest for the ‘fountain of youth’ is a perennial feature of human storytelling. Modern science has revealed what that quest is up against. Ageing is what happens by default to organisms that have lived past the period of life during which they generally pass on their genes to the next generation. After that, no selective pressures stand in the way of processes of deterioration and decay.
More here.
