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Ending Aging
The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs That Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime
- Read in 13 minutes
- Audio & text available
- Contains 8 key ideas
Synopsis
Ending Aging (2007) puts forward a fascinating theory about how science may allow human beings to slow the hands of time and, therefore, the process of aging. Learn what happens in our bodies that leads to aging, disease and cancer – and how modern science might be able to put an end to these problems once and for all.
Key idea 1 of 8
Aging is a part of every human life, or is it?
As the saying goes, two things are unavoidable in life: death and taxes. While it’s true that there isn’t much we can do to keep the government from taking a chunk out of our paycheck, we are becoming better at delaying death.
We’ve long accepted aging as an unavoidable, though unpleasant, fact of life. Most people don’t think there’s much sense in worrying about something we have no control over. Why waste time trying to prevent the inevitable? After all, how can you enjoy life if you’re worrying about an unsolvable problem?
There are also those who believe that solving the problem of aging could be a bad thing; there are concerns that such a solution would contribute to overpopulation, or that the solution would only be available to the extremely wealthy.
But there are many – the author among them – who believe it is worth regarding the problem of aging as potentially soluble, just like any other ailment. That’s why the author has developed a program that aims to stop aging.
This program is called SENS: Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence.
In the upcoming blinks, we’ll see how this strategy could help prevent mitochondrial mutations by clearing up the junk that plagues human cells. This junk includes disease-promoting proteins called AGEs and death-resistant “zombie cells.” We’ll also see how these steps can promote healthy cell loss as well as prevent DNA mutation, which leads to aging.
The author’s program does face some challenges, however: there are concerns about insufficient funding to properly develop the technology and conduct the research that is needed to stop people from aging.
But if funding does come through, he predicts – with a 50 percent certainty – that it will be possible for us to stop people from dying of old age.
Most scientists agree that aging is inevitable. However, the bodily damage that causes aging may be reparable.
Key ideas in this title
- Aging is a part of every human life, or is it?
- Normally, prevention is better than cure. Preventing aging, however, might be too complex.
- Mitochondrial mutation plays a huge part in aging and there might be ways to fix that.
- The junk found both in and outside of cells is another treatable contributor to aging.
- By changing processes in our body we could stop cell loss and mutation, the main causes of cancer.
- AGE’s and “zombie cells” could be treated with drugs or enzymes to stop their aging.
- The current therapies for humans aren’t perfect for humans, but they are a good starting point.
- Final summary
