Fix This, Or Else
The human condition, the biological part of it at least, might be described as a big list of "fix this, or else." For most of human history, fixing was out of the question and thus "or else" was the order of the day. Everyone aged, degenerated and died of critical failure in one or more vital biological systems. Every important component in your body is running down a timer determined by the rate of accumulation of various types of biochemical damage - and of course by the degree to which we step in and either slow or, far better, repair that damage.
Below is an interesting paper of a mindset I think should be encouraged. Given biological system A, what is its life expectancy? How long can we expect it to last, given its characteristics of damage and wear?
Rapid increase in human life expectancy: will it soon be limited by the aging of elastin?
The selective decline of individual physiological functions - aging in spare-parts - indicates however the potential limitation of the life-span by the rapid decline of some of the vital parameters. We explored a possibility of such a limitation of maximal life-span by the age-related alteration of elastin, consisting in Ca-accumulation, lipid deposition and elastolytic degradation. The quantitative evaluation of these processes suggests an approximative upper limit for the elastic properties of the cardio-respiratory system of about 100-120 years, at least, as far as elastin is involved.
The technologies of slowing and repairing haven't progressed very far at all down the road of what is possible. Yet. But they will - and viewpoints like that in the paper above encourage more people to think in terms of damage and repair. This is important, because that mindset leads to initiatives and results.
Reversing bulk changes in chemical properties and structure in the body - like the changes that render elastin incapable of its function - is an area in which I would expect to see significant progress sooner rather than later. Once funding and a research community ramps up, that is. This is a situation ideally suited to the present generation of biotechnology: molecules and molecular complexes in state A that you'd rather have in state B - with the complication that your chemical tool for achieving that goal must be safe to put inside people. There are many, many different types of such biochemical changes that we'd like to undo, but each victory is incremental progress, and many research groups can work in parallel.
You might want to take a look at some of these references for more: