How effective are the technology breakthroughs that could extend human life? | Latest Tech News
Birthday muffins would need to come with fire extinguishers if these two world leaders have their manner.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping had been caught on a sizzling mike this week discussing scientific approaches to dramatically extending human life, renewing the age-old debate about the potential for people to live to 150.
“Human organs can be continuously transplanted. The longer you live, the younger you become, and [you can] even achieve immortality,” Putin’s interpreter could be heard saying in Chinese.
Xi, who was off digital camera at the Beijing event, will be heard responding in Chinese: “Some predict that in this century humans may live to 150 years old.”
Jeanne Calment was once the world’s oldest individual. She died in 1997 at 122. REUTERS
Jeanne Calment of France has come the closest. She died in 1997 at the age of 122 years and 164 days, the longest documented, verified lifespan.
In the years since, the quest for excessive longevity has change into a multibillion-dollar industry of experimental remedies and cutting-edge research aimed at slowing, stopping or even reversing the growing older course of.
Think nanorobots for exact drugs supply, bio-engineered organs for transplant and AI-generated digital clones that could “live on” after somebody’s death.
But it could be all for naught — researchers have warned that the human physique has a organic restrict on its potential to get better from sickness and stress. Then it’s lights out.
Naomi Whitehead, 114, is at the moment the oldest residing American. St. Paul’s Senior Living Community /Facebook
“Biologically, we would need to transform middle-aged people into teenagers; centenarians would need to become young adults; and supercentenarians would need to become like 50–70-year-old people today and stay like that for decades,” S. Jay Olshansky, a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Illinois Chicago, told The Post about the prospect of residing to 150.
“There is nothing available today or visible on the aging science horizon that is even remotely close to achieving this.”
Olshansky revealed research last 12 months suggesting that the large features in life expectancy we noticed over the past two centuries are slowing and will not be sustainable, despite medical advances, public health initiatives and financial and social progress.
US life expectancy was 78.4 years in 2023 — a bump from 75.4 years in 1990 and a slight dip from 78.8 years in 2019.
The Pew Research Center tasks that there’ll only be about 422,000 centenarian Americans in 2054 — about 0.1% of the population — up from 101,000 in 2024.
The oldest residing American is Pennsylvania’s Naomi Whitehead, who turns 115 this month.
Elizabeth Francis, a Houston resident who beforehand held the title, died in October at the age of 115 years and 89 days.
Elizabeth Francis, who used to be the oldest residing individual in the US, died last 12 months at 115. ABC News
“To get to 150, we would need periodic, safe rejuvenation of tissues,” biomedical scientist Raphael E. Cuomo, a professor at UC San Diego’s School of Medicine, told The Post.
“That means preventing or curing cancer, cardiovascular disease, neurodegeneration, infection, renal failure and frailty together,” Cuomo said. “It also means resetting epigenetic and proteostatic damage and replacing failing organs without lifelong immunosuppression.”
Here’s a look at some of the technology that biohackers hope will push human longevity to the brink.
Nanobots
Researchers envision tiny robots in the bloodstream delivering drugs to affected cells, detecting disease and repairing broken tissues.
Progress has been made in this rising area, but these teensy troubleshooters are still a long manner from being a widespread actuality.
“Nanobots show promise in the lab, not in the clinic,” Cuomo said.
Organ transplants and artificial organs
Transplanted organs can last years or even a long time, but not eternally.
A genetically engineered pig kidney seems healthy during a transplant operation at NYU Langone Health. via REUTERS
The immune system often identifies the transplanted organ as a overseas object and assaults it. The elements that necessitate a transplant — like the affected person’s underlying health situations or poor lifestyle selections — can also threaten the success of the new organ.
Bio-engineered organs could extend lifespan by addressing donor organ scarcity, immune rejection and age-related organ failure.
There have been steps in this direction — the first genetically-edited pig kidney was transplanted into a residing individual last 12 months. The 62-year-old recipient died weeks later, though medical doctors say it was because he skilled a coronary heart downside.
“The reality is that aging is systemic — your brain, immune system and vasculature all age together, rather than your organs alone,” Dr. Pooja Gidwani, a concierge longevity doctor in LA, told The Post.
“You can swap out failing parts, but you can’t expect a reset of the entire machine that is the human body.”
Stem cell therapy
A research last 12 months out of Lebanon called stem cell therapy “one of the most promising therapies to control aging, due to the fact that single stem cell transplantation can regenerate or substitute the injured tissue.”
Many consultants say repairing DNA is the key to longevity. vitstudio – stock.adobe.com
Gidwani famous that “we are not at a stage where [stem cells] can rebuild entire bodies.”
The treatment also comes with advanced moral points, like the source of the stem cells, along with the risk that their uncontrolled growth could lead to tumors.
Plasma exchange therapy
Removing a individual’s plasma — the yellowish liquid portion of blood — and changing it with a toxin-free substitute has long been used to deal with blood issues and autoimmune illnesses.
Now, it’s a fashionable service at longevity clinics even though it has not been confirmed to improve lifespan in healthy people.
Removing a individual’s plasma and changing it with a toxin-free substitute is a fashionable service at longevity clinics. Olga Ginzburg for NY Post
Small research have shown promise. Dr. Michael Aziz, creator of “The Ageless Revolution,” identified that plasma exchange knocked two years off contributors’ organic ages in one trial.
‘Digital immortality’ with AI
There are bots that can mimic your voice and writing type, but you are still one of a variety.
“Digital immortality” is the thought that your consciousness, persona or legacy can live on in an AI-powered duplicate after your death.
“Not possible with today’s science,” Cuomo said. “We cannot yet capture or emulate a human mind.”
Other technology that goals to extend lifespan
“To realistically add decades, you’d need to slow aging at the cellular level: repairing DNA damage, preserving mitochondrial function (the cell’s energy source), improving metabolic health and reducing the chronic inflammation that accelerates disease,” Gidwani said.
“That’s why the most exciting research today is focused on epigenetic reprogramming, which is essentially resetting cells to a more youthful state, and senolytic drugs that clear out toxic ‘zombie’ cells,” she added. “These strategies target the very biology of aging itself.”
Gidwani said it’s more real looking to add 10 to 20 more healthy years to your life by utilizing wearable technology and superior medical scans to proactively detect early indicators of issues and sort out them with focused therapies — and, oh yeah, by eating properly and exercising.
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