Some of the oldest people alive today drink a glass of wine or eating two strips of bacon
every morning.
Which doesn’t sound half bad..
but how can we really live longer?
Hey everyone!
Julia here for DNews
While genes are a big factor into living longer, genetics only make up 30% of the story.
The rest seems up to us.
Life expectancy at birth in the U.S. has been rising for all groups at rate of about .6
years a year.
People born in the last five years could reasonably expect to live into their late 70s even early
80s.
At this rate, it seems like we could live until 100 soon!
Well, not quite yet.
Most researchers thought that living longer meant more time doing what you love.
The assumption just went without saying.
However recent research showed otherwise.
Scientists at University of Massachusetts Medical School extended the life of roundworm
by playing with four different mechanisms.
No matter what mutations they had, the worms lived longer, but they spent a greater percentage
of their live in a frail state.
BUMMER DUDE.
As we extend our lifespans with modern medicine, age related diseases like Alzheimer's and
certain cancers are on the rise.
We seem to be extending the amount of time we spend in suffering.
To spend more time healthy, that’s going to take some heavy scientific lifting.
Researchers from UCLA showed that by turning on a single gene they could extend life by
30%.
AMP-activated protein kinase helps get rid of cellular garbage by promoting autophagy,
or destroying sick or damaged cells.
The story goes that over time our cells get damaged as we age and it’s the build up
of these damaged cells that lead to age related illnesses.
The enzyme helps the body clean up all these damaged cells.
The researchers found that flies who had this gene activated lived up to 30% longer and
were healthier during their later days.
Yet note that I said flies, this hasn’t been proved in mammals yet.
Another way to boost your lifespan?
Caloric Restriction.
For some reason rats who are fed shockingly low number of calories, live up to 40% longer
than their peers.
Scientists think a lack of glucose is responsible.
Glucose occasionally binds to some of our DNA, proteins and lipids, and stops them from
doing their jobs causing some disease.
A restricted diet might prevent some of this process.
But there’s no evidence this works in humans and it’s not recommended, for obvious reasons.
Rather than starving yourself, could you pop a pill?
One FDA approved drug, Rapamycin, already extends the lifespan and healthspan in mice
by 30%.
But unfortunately it’s designed as an immunosuppressant.
Knocking out your immune system could be a pretty heavy price to pay for a chance at
a longer life.
Yet recent research is working on blocking the immunosuppressant qualities.
And you can’t talk about immortality without talking about telomeres.
Telomeres are like the plastic tips on your shoelaces, but for your DNA.
Everytime DNA makes a copy of itself, the telomeres get shorter.
If they weren’t there at all, your DNA would fray like a shoelace and cause age-related
diseases.
So what would happen if we could stop telomere shortening?
Most of these possibilities only seem to extend lifespan 10-30 years, which is not forever.
But hey, I’ll take it.
Geneticist Richard Cawthon thinks if we could get rid of all aging processes and repair
cellular damage, humans could live up to 1,000 years.
The question is - would you want to?
What do you think?
let us know in the comments and keep coming back here for more DNews every day of the
week!