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Living to 120 is becoming an imaginable prospect
(www.economist.com)
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this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2023
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Maybe, though I think that’s a bit overstating it. 50 years ago, leading men in romance movies were sometimes 50+
Lead, smoking, post war trauma… all less of an issue in today’s generations. What are the big longevity extenders for the next generation? I don’t think projections are very good.
The projection is that we'll repair the damage regular living does to us (basically metabolism).
And I disagree with you, it will help us better than penicillin or what ever other progress that made us live longer and healthier in the past.
Most problems are based largely on aging, it's because our body wears out. Very few people get cancers, heart attacks, alzheimers or die from simple infectious diseases in ther twenties.
The theory exists since a couple of decades and althought being challenged thoroughly no cracks has been found up to today at least, we can repair the damage done and cure ageing, and today funding is there.
On a side note, senolytics and some other first gen treatments are probable for say in ten years or earlier (some experimental stuff already exist too), if they roll back your age just by a meager 10 years when you're 60, it's 10 years of research and new treatments that you can have access to and so on.
I see… anti aging.
Well, if that technology ever actually lands, then I agree with you, it will be momentous.
However, we’ve been 30 years away from being able to slow/stop/reverse aging for the last 30 years. It’s like fusion. It’ll be facking great if it happens, but no one should talk about it like it’s a sure thing.
Well 30 years ago was when it all started (basically Dr de Grey shaking up gerontology, and the subsequent book Ending Aging), and the first ten years he fought all the problems in old academia and funding research himself. The next 10 was more fighting the "deathists" and trying to get at least some seriously funded adventures on the road and now ten years after that we have bio gerontologists not only wanting to push forward but they also can without jeopardizing their careers, lots of well funded biotech startups (rich people did finally get it) and the first treatments (Dasatinib + Quercetin was the first one IIRC, which can be had over the counter. It's a senolytic and removes senescent cells) actually exists.
Now we need ways to assess the effectiveness of those treatments in humans (better ways than trying and waiting for 30 years), and see if they actually do rejuvenate, and that's one another tricky question that lots of people are working on right now, so for me the future is bright.