Best Strength

Researchers have started looking into ways to slow, stop or perhaps even reverse the changes that accompany aging.

Aging happens gradually, and it’s pretty much unrelenting. Eyesight dims, joints get stiff and achy, teeth go bad and, in general, things just keep getting worse until death arrives.

But research demonstrates that aging isn’t a supernatural process; it’s a physical one that gradually occurs as systems wear out beyond the body’s ability to repair them. Cells fill up with metabolic debris called lipofuscin that they can’t digest, accompanied by decreasing functionality. They also undergo glycation, gumming up and caramelizing with sugars that have bonded to proteins. Mitochondrial DNA can suffer mutations, and the body slowly loses stem cells, which weakens healing and repair.

Scientists have already identified modest life extenders. It’s pretty thoroughly established that red wine’s resveratrol activates the SIRT-1 gene, which seems to clean out intracellular gunk. Studies show that rats dosed with resveratrol — or given low-calorie diets — seem to live longer and remain far more vital than ordinary rats.

At Stanford, researchers have reversed the aging of skin in mice, making it look and act like young skin, which contains cells that reproduce rapidly. This treatment isn’t ready for humans, but it suggests an approach.

On the flip side, people often see extended longevity as dubious, envisioning extra years in the nursing home. As Jay Leno says, “People tell you to eat right and exercise, but that only gives you more years in your 80s. Who needs that? What I really want are more years in my 20s.” New treatments for aging would give us just that — or at least healthier years in our 60s and 70s. The goal isn’t just more years in your life, but more life in your years.

If antiaging drugs eventually work, who could be against them? Well, Dr. Leon Kass, for one. Kass, former chairman of the President’s Council on Bioethics, writes: “Is it really true that longer life for individuals is an unqualified good? If the human life span were increased even by only 20 years, would the pleasures of life increase proportionately?”

The obvious answer: It depends on the individual. But on a societal level, the extension of people’s productive working lives could pay huge dividends. If people stay youthful longer, we’ll see less pressure on the stressed-out social security systems of most industrialized countries.

Finding a cure for aging might help people live longer and more vibrant and productive lives. In the meantime eat healthy and remember to exercise.

Adapted from MSN