Should We Slow Ageing?
If you were given a choice to live for another century, would you take it?
It probably sounds like something straight out of a futuristic sci-fi movie. Yet, with constant technological advancements, we may be closer to such an era than you think.
Thousands of years ago, the average human had a much shorter lifespan, roughly a third of what it is now. Over time we began to use surrounding resources to develop as a species, and our technology became more advanced. Modern-day; humans live longer and healthier lives than ever before, but at an unfortunate cost: we spend an ever-increasing part of our lives being sick. We will often die in a hospital bed or see this happen to a loved one.
But what if there was a way to stop this and change how we age forever.
Why Do We Age
Aging is a complicated process, and we do not fully understand how it works. It is a multivariate, complex mix of many chemical and physical cycles, and we don't comprehend or even know all of them. But the science of aging has made a ton of progress in the past decade, and we are finally beginning to understand the inevitable part of our lives. According to scientists, there are three significant factors that can make an impact on the future of ageing during our lifetimes.
NAD+→ The compound NAD+ is involved in many vital bodily processes, such as converting nutrients into energy (crucial for metabolism) and helps regulate other cellular functions by acting as a helper molecule. The compound depletes very quickly, almost halving between ages 20 to 50. Low amounts of the compound are linked to multiple illnesses like Skin Cancer and Alziemers.
Cellular Senescence→ Occurs when unhealthy and malfunctioning cells lack the suicide protein required to replace harmful cells with new healthy ones. These cells then take up space and resources that hurt neighbouring cells and tissue. Senescent cells play a significant role in ageing; in some cases, they can lead to cancer and tumours.
Stem Cells→ A type of cell which replicates itself and can evolve into various kinds of cells. With age, the number of these cells for bodily repair drastically decreases. Increasing our supply of these cells benefits our overall cardiovascular and muscular health. Currently, scientists are working with these cells to cure many deteriorating diseases.
Can We Slow Ageing
We are currently living longer than ever before, which is incredible. But an unexpected result of this is that we are spending a substantial share of our lives suffering or needing care. Consequently, scientists encourage the medical community to focus on maximizing health spans rather than life spans.
In general, it makes more sense to prevent a disease rather than treat it, which is why scientists seek to leverage the part of our lives where we are disease-free. In other words, we are striving to live a more significant share of our life healthy rather than living longer in misery. For this to work, scientists must go to the source of most bodily diseases: ageing.
To combat ageing, we must figure out how to raise our body's NAD+ and stem cell levels while simultaneously killing off senescent cells.
Raising NAD+ Levels
To raise NAD+ levels, scientists found that NAD+ can't enter cells, so it can't be absorbed through pill or injection. However, other substances like NMN (nicotinamide Mononucleotide) could enter the cell and turn into NAD+.
One thing to note about NAD+ is that longevity science is entirely new and has many uncertainties. While we can increase the amount of NAD+, there aren't enough studies proving that they will be practical in humans since not everything that works with animals (most experiments were on mice) works with humans. While risks are unlikely, there is no concrete evidence that long-term use of these supplements is safe. Nonetheless, it is still an exciting new field. With several companies working on longevity (not just with NAD+ but numerous other technologies), I am eager to see what is in store for our lives in the future, as medical discoveries are continually made.
Increasing Our Stem Cell Supply
Increasing the number of available stem cells in your body means you now have more cells available for bodily repair. Some cancer patients receive a stem cell transplant to acquire healthy blood-forming stem cells through a needle in their vein, replenishing cells in their bone marrow damaged by chemotherapy.
Applying this concept toward ageing, experts believe it will be possible to slow ageing by boosting the supply of stem cells in the hypothalamus. Changes in hypothalamic neurons contribute to the age-associated deterioration in energy, hormone balance, circadian rhythm, and reproduction.
Killing Senescent Cells
When a healthy cell copies itself, it loses a tiny bit of DNA each time. This is why our cells have a telomere, which protects the genome from losing extensive amounts of DNA every time the cell divides. However, the telomere shortens after many divisions, and the cell becomes senescent. Since these cells lack the protein to commit cellular suicide (p53), scientists are researching the possibility of injecting us with this protein to kill most of our senescent cells.
Should We Slow Ageing
The whole concept of ageing is a sensitive topic for some. For almost the entirety of human history, the natural order of life has been more or less the same, so should we try and alter it?
Our problem is that we all desire to grow old mentally, but no one wants to grow old physically. Our current form of life extension involves prolonging life, which means decades more of suffering from the consequences of ageing.
But slowing ageing shouldn't mean we continue to weaken, but rather end diseases that keep us from reaching our maximum age. We aren't sure whether we can give every human a few extra healthy decades or end natural ageing entirely. With either one, the way we live our lives would drastically change.
How much longer would you spend working or learning if you were to live until double the current expected age? Would you spend more time figuring out what you are good at doing?
Ultimately, we would have to weigh all risks involved with slowing ageing. In my eyes, I think it will only be a matter of a few decades before these newer methods of prolonging life are implemented.
The Future
There are so many questions concerning the future of ageing but aren't enough answers out there yet. We will learn more about preventing it and its effects with time and research. Imagining current concepts into actual cures is far more realistic now than ever. But are we going to stop there? We already have researchers at Neuralink adding/replacing the biological parts of monkeys with computer chips. It seems believable that eventually, we could replace human flaws with mechanical counterparts and have the first-ever cyborg species.
The sooner we can pause ageing, the sooner our life-changing advancements will drastically improve!
Key Takeaways
- It is better to have a long and healthy life over a bedridden and longer life
- As we age, we need to boost our bodies' levels of NAD+ and stem cells while eradicating senescent cells simultaneously
- The best way to combat disease is to prevent it from occurring in the first place
- Medicine should focus on maximizing health spans over life spans
- My take: within the next few decades, the future of ageing will revolutionize
Let's Connect!
If you enjoyed reading this article or learned something new, I’d love to connect on LinkedIn. If you’d like to stay updated on my recent articles or projects, you can subscribe to my newsletter here!
