New varieties of medications targeting age associated physical and mental decline might transform not simply how we live but also perhaps our death.
These particular drugs work in the mitochondria, the generator that energizes cells that supply our bodies with chemical energy. As time progresses the mitochondria sustain damage and cells and tissues begin to fail and deteriorate. Researchers think that what appear to be dissimilar diseases such as cancer, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, diabetes and heart disease – all of which are age associated - come from a mitochondrial origin. The theory is if you fix the mitochondria, you are fixing age progression.
Initial research puts forward that mitochondria restoring medications are able, at least in laboratory animals, of thwarting illnesses and prolonging life. The investigation is also surmising that once a traditional life span has been achieved, the animals are liable to pass away rapidly and mysteriously, leaving no tell tale signs of disease or a breakdown of their systems.
If this sequence of events from the lab were to occur in humans, death would not resolve itself in months or perhaps years of suffering, but would happen fast and with no advance indication of it. This would leave families always being surprised by the death of loved ones.
It makes one contemplate what kind of deaths would occur if age related diseases were eradicated. Curiosity would beg for answers from the science researchers asking just what did the lab animals eventually die from. Turns out there was no simple answers forthcoming from the scientific front. When a lab animal dies, it is often not easy to figure out the cause of death with any sureness. The only thing the investigative team was sure of is the mutant rodents that are used in the labs are considerably less likely to perish from cancer – and appreciably more apt to die leaving no death related lesions.
These observations were backed up by Caloric restriction research veteran, Luigi Fontana. The results of caloric restriction lead to the development of mitochondria targeted drugs that stimulate most of the identical cellular activities. Fontana simply stated they died of natural causes…likely their hearts stopped beating! Fontana has given this reason often as an explanation for the expiration of his lab rodents, which exhibit little verification of histopathological lesions – tissue and organ damage or irregularities – discussed in prior studies. Basically, the animal falls over dead and there is really no good reason for it. One theory is the breakdown of the electrical conductive system within their hearts due to metabolic modifications. There is no pain, no prolonged suffering, and little or no medical or social expenditure for our society.
Now would probably be a good time to intercede with a word or two of caution: the research right now is preliminary. According to gerontology maverick Aubrey de Grey, the jury is still out about the effectual nature of these medications when it comes to age related disease and illness.
Having said that, it is still worthwhile contemplating how the nature of our eventual mortality might be transformed, if for no other reason than to ready ourselves for potential disturbance or investigation into our own link to what is surely coming our way.
Rapid and unexpected fatalities are surely not uncommon, but the majority of deaths take place with some advanced notification. Imagine if you will, what life would resemble if most of our innate deaths came without prior notice? How would we be affected as a society? Would it mean a difference in how we treat each other in our daily interactions? Perhaps anxiety would overcome us and each time the phone rang, we hit the ceiling.
DeGrey offered another hypothesis: What if anti aging medications did flourish and were able to beat the majority but not all diseases, with just a single disease like Alzheimer’s as the lone primary cause of death?
I am not sure there is a single answer to the eventualities if such a drug/s became available but any time we have an opportunity to prevent a single illness, never mind the whole lot of them, we should be pressed into active research and as a society, assist in any way possible to reach that outcome.
Thu, Jan 21, 2010
Anti Aging, Bioscience, Health And Aging, Longevity