ANTI-AGING CROSSROADS AHEAD
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Editor's Note: We are reposting this essay from our June 2002 issue to accompany our coverage of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. To read the full position statement on aging and its extensive list of references, follow this link.
Efforts to combat aging and extend human life date at least as far back as 3500 B.C., and self-proclaimed experts have touted anti-aging elixirs ever since. Indeed, the prospect of immortality has always had universal appeal, spurring Alexander the Great and Ponce de León to search for the legendary Fountain of Youth and feeding alchemists’ desire to manufacture gold (once believed to be the most potent anti-aging substance in existence). But the hawking of anti-aging “therapies” has taken a particularly troubling turn of late. Disturbingly large numbers of entrepreneurs are luring gullible and frequently desperate customers of all ages to “longevity” clinics, claiming a scientific basis for the anti-aging products they recommend and, often, sell. At the same time, the Internet has enabled those who seek lucre from supposed anti-aging products to reach new consumers with ease.
Alarmed by these trends, scientists who study aging, including the three of us, have issued a position statement containing this warning: no currently marketed intervention—none—has yet been proved to slow, stop or reverse human aging, and some can be downright dangerous. While the public is bombarded by hype and lies, many biologists are intensively studying the underlying nature of aging in the belief that their research will eventually suggest ways to slow its progression and to thereby postpone infirmity and improve quality of life. But anyone purporting to offer an anti-aging product today is either mistaken or lying. (Here's the full position statement.) Here we state the case as we see it, speaking for ourselves.
What Aging Is... and Isn’t Any discussion of aging should first clarify its terms. Various definitions have been proposed, but we think of aging as the accumulation of random damage to the building blocks of life—especially to DNA, certain proteins, carbohydrates and lipids (fats)—that begins early in life and eventually exceeds the body’s self-repair capabilities. This damage gradually impairs the functioning of cells, tissues, organs and organ systems, thereby increasing vulnerability to disease and giving rise to the characteristic manifestations of aging, such as a loss of muscle and bone mass, a decline in reaction time, compromised hearing and vision, and re-
duced elasticity of the skin.
This accretion of molecular damage comes from many sources, including, ironically, the life-sustaining processes involved in converting the food we eat into usable energy. As the energy generators of cells (mitochondria) operate, they emit destructive, oxidizing molecules known as free radicals. Most of the damage caused by these reactive molecules gets repaired, but not all. Biologists suspect that the oxidative assaults ultimately cause irreparable injury to the mitochondria, thereby impeding the cell’s ability to maintain the integrity of the countless molecules needed to keep the body operating properly. The free radicals may also disrupt other parts of cells directly.
Aging, in our view, makes us ever more susceptible to such ills as heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease, stroke and cancer, but these age-related conditions are superimposed on aging, not equivalent to it. Therefore, even if science could eliminate today’s leading killers of older individuals, aging would continue to occur, ensuring that different maladies would take their place. In addition, it would guarantee that one crucial body component or another—say, the cardiovascular system—would eventually experience a catastrophic failure. It is an inescapable biological reality that once the engine of life switches on, the body inevitably sows the seeds of its own destruction.
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10 Comments
Add CommentResearchers should be giving dstudyR
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisResearchers should be giving intensive scrutiny to staphylococcus radiofurans for its ability to maintain DNA functionality in very high ionizing environments. Could give a few clues to effectively enhancing vitality in the aged.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishello buddy i read your comment i like it it's great comment dear i learn alot of things from your comment deaer i hope everybody likes your post dear thanx for this information
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this===========================
Neil Johnson
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<a href="http://www.skincareproducts101.com">Skin Care Products</a>-Skin Care Products
hello buddy i read your comment i like it it's great comment dear i learn alot of things from your comment deaer i hope everybody likes your post dear thanx for this information
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Neil Johnson
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[url=http://www.skincareproducts101.com]Skin Care Products[/url]-Skin Care Products
I guarantee you, these scientist's are a bunch of old looking men! I personally can prove them wrong! The Fountain of Youth, really does exist! I am living proof!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDarius Wright, 50year old pres. Fountain of Youth, fitness and health, LLC
The fountain exists, its a dissapointing 9 dollars. It is a simple well. Nothing more. If you were wanting to see it, dont waste your time.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSirtris Pharmaceuticals has this to say about their sirtuin research, which derived from caloric restriction studies and the gene complexes stimulated by that:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Sirtris is currently evaluating SRT2104 in multiple Phase IIa clinical trials in patients with Type 2 Diabetes, inflammation and cardiovascular disease."
Granted, their research is oriented toward treatment of specific diseases but they happen to be those most commonly associated with the degenerative processes implicated with aging.
GAry 7
51 guys that work for the FDA ... No one is ever going to listen to anything that an american scientist has to say because we know who pulls your strings little puppet. How can any human being live their life being a puppet for anyone??? Cowardly humans.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree 100% and disagree as well! But there is the exception to every rule, is that the existence of an
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisexception is in some way evidence that the rule exists!!!
I respect what the Scientists have to say, yes I agree
on the anti aging products! But read every word, the
clues esp. about genes, health, "cells", and saying's
(quote them: We live longer now not because we have altered the way we age but because we have altered the way we live.)
The point I got from this is: no skin care product works
its about the body and brain within itself PERIOD!!!
Aging predisposes cells, tissues and organs to the diseases of aging. Experiments, particularly the parabiosis studies of the Conboys, et al, the recent work of Villeda et al. restoring mental functioning to aged rats, the validation that changing a cell into induced pleuripotent stem cell fully rejuvenates it, even when starting with the cells of centenarians, the knowledge that the nucleus of a senescent cell can provide complete information for the birth of perfectly normal cows - all show that aging is not the result of the accumulation of 'wear and tear' but a programmed process that can be reversed. The cellular age-phenotype can be reset - and we know how to do it. Does this mean eternal youth is 'just around the corner'? Maybe.
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