Can you imagine your grandparents being as vital and active mentally and physically as their great grandchildren? How about seeing your grandparents as teenagers and having THEM teach YOU how to break dance! You do not like visiting them because they play Led Zeppelin too loud on their stereo. This is humorous and hard to visualize since aging has been ingrained in our minds and we accept what we see in reality as fact. We think of our grandparents and parents as aging individuals who eventually get sick, suffer and die.
It is difficult for us to picture our grandparents being in better physical condition than we are. Nevertheless, aging will eventually be rendered to the stories of legend told at bedtime to future generations. Maybe your great grandfather will be telling the scary story of growing old to your son and daughter after a day of bungi jumps and cliff diving!
Today our attention must be directed toward delaying the aging process, a method proven to assist us with this is calorie restriction. It means eating a diet that consists of fewer calories yet delivers optimal nutrition. Studies have displayed evidence of longevity increasing by over fifty percent in some mammals along with unintended benefits as well, though far too many people have a difficult time limiting their diets regardless of what the reward will be. Science must increase our longevity without placing limitations on us and causing us to endure age associated misery for extended periods. We need to be vital and healthy so we can enjoy our extended life spans, not grasp at it in a struggle against dying.
Nothing is impossible, but it remains unlikely that a cure for aging will inevitably appear and relieve us immediately from age linked illness and disease. Scientific research has made impressive leaps developing genetic involvement that puts off the aging process in animals; while human therapies and treatments for age related disease and general aging will continue to evolve in effectiveness and potency. Can you imagine if we could increase our human longevity by fifty percent what it would mean. We could add another thirty five or forty years to our life expectancy. In those gifted years new techniques and interventions would be developed allowing us even more time. This succession would carry forward until finally a legitimate “cure” for aging was found. It is not out of the realm of possibility that given this kind of progress, some people alive today could conceivably still be around four or five hundred years from this date.
One would be required to ask, what would the results of extending human life, from finding an actual cure for aging. Would there be any unintended consequences for tampering with God’s original plan? Those less spiritual would consider medical and scientific implications as part of the learning curve, but at whose expense? For every medical research project or study that succeeds, how many go grossly wrong? Humankind has been known to jump the gun in the name of progress before from a medical standpoint. This is why ethical committees are in place since science is continually pushing the envelope.
Perhaps this thirst for cures and human immortality is a good thing and there will be lineups for the vaccine. However, we need to make sure the “cure” isn’t worse than the disease.
Fri, Dec 18, 2009
Anti Aging, Immortality, Longevity