A Discussion of Modest Goals in Treating Aging
Many researchers involved in longevity science initiatives have very modest goals. They are looking into how to alter metabolism to modestly slow the progression of aging, which is an enormously complex task and the research community is presently barely at the outset of obtaining a sufficient understanding to proceed effectively. Even with success, the possible benefits that can be achieved via slowing aging as much as, say, calorie restriction does are small in humans - and no-one has come close to achieving that target yet despite fifteen years of work and at least a billion dollars in funding. So the researchers involved here accurately predict expensive, slow, and gradual progress.
When I say "small" in connection with what calorie restriction can provide I mean a greater benefit to long term health than any presently available medical technology can produce in basically healthy people, and a few years added to overall life spans. This is nothing in the grand scheme of what is possible through other approaches, however. Instead of trying to alter an enormously complex system such that it wears and damages at a slower pace, researchers should be trying to fix that damage. Let us keep the metabolism we have, but regularly repair it. Aging is nothing more than damage, and repair would mean rejuvenation, an approach that is limited only by its effectiveness in how many years of healthy life it can add. Further, the damage that causes aging is already known and cataloged: the only research needed is to develop the means to remove it, and in most cases research groups already have strategies in mind.
So the future can be one of expensive, slow progress to a mediocre end goal that will provide very little help to old people, or a faster path to rejuvenation treatments that can actually reverse the frailty and suffering of aging. Sadly the research community remains largely fixated on the former path rather than the latter at this time, which is why it is very important to support the work of disruptive research groups like the SENS Research Foundation who are working on the better approach to treating aging and gathering allies in the scientific community.
Most scientists say we are no closer to eternal life today than we were all those years ago. The word "immortality" elicits a mixture of laughter and earnest explanations about the difference between science and science fiction. Conversations about longevity, however, are an entirely different story. Researchers are optimistic about recent efforts to delay the effects of aging and, perhaps, extend life spans. But at the same time, the scientific community is wary of how quickly these findings are packaged and resold by companies promising a fountain of youth. "It's probably worse today than it's ever been. As soon as the scientists publish any glimmer of hope, the hucksters jump in and start selling."Understanding the process of aging and developing treatments that might slow the rate at which people grow old could help doctors keep patients healthy longer. We won't be able to stop or reverse aging, but researchers are interested in slowing its progress, such that one year of clock time might not equal a year of biological time for the body. That could delay the onset of diseases like cancer, strokes, cardiovascular disease and dementia, which become more prevalent as people age. "By targeting fundamental aging processes, we might be able to delay the major age-related chronic diseases instead of picking them off one at time. For example, we don't want to have situation where we, say, cure cancer and then people die six months later of Alzheimer's disease or a stroke. It would be better to delay all of these things together."
This is where the field known as the biology of aging is moving - to develop drugs that will increase life span and what researchers refer to as health span, the period of life when people are able to live independently and free from disease.
Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/19/your-money/science-and-quacks-vs-the-aging-process-.html
It never ceases to baffle me that the idea that when something stops working you should figure out what's changed in the system and work to undo it, simply hasn't even occurred to most people. At least in medicine, anyways, people have no problem applying that principle in other areas of life. When a water pipe breaks, people don't ignore the break in the pipe and only focus on trying to devise ways to slow down the rate at which the area is flooded, and rely from then on on importing bottled water to the place the pipe serviced. They fix the damned pipe! When a plane's engine catches fire, we replace the engine; we don't instead leave the broken engine in place and spend millions developing better and better techniques of flying planes with missing engines. It seems that only in medicine is not even bothering to try to fix the problem considered acceptable.
"Most scientists say we are no closer to eternal life today than we were all those years ago."
This is completely fatuous — even the "quacks" the article is attacking don't promise "eternal life" from their dubious supplements. Neither did the fanciful ambitions of "all those years ago" for that matter. From the fountain of youth to the elixers sought by the alchemists, the latter to include such interesting effects as turning people into hermaphrodites, rejuvenation seems to have been the focus. As far as I know only religions have promised eternal life. Moreover, the unnamed scientists' observation is meaningless and tautological. How could one get any closer to eternity no matter how great a finite time had passed or what had happened in the interval?