de Grey asks, "Why do you want to die?"
Aubrey de Grey looks and speaks like a wizard, but don’t dismiss him. He stands out as one of the most impassioned and well-reasoned advocates for longer, healthier life. His non-profit, the SENS Foundation (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence), seeks to use regenerative medicine to combat the disability and illnesses associated with aging. In his talk last year at TEDMED, he outlined how a “maintenance approach” could drastically extend the length of healthy life by systematically combating the damage our bodies accumulate as they age. Watch the video below and you’ll start to believe that regenerative medicine is on the path to curing old age.
Regenerative medicine includes a wide range of scientific endeavors, from genetic therapies to immune system training. Stem cells get the most attention, and perhaps rightfully so. Growing a new organ in a lab, or even in the body, is pretty remarkable stuff. What we need to remember though is that scientific research is developing many different treatments for injury to our bodies. Aubrey de Grey proposes that this research (with a few additions) will be enough to keep us healthy and fit well beyond our current expectations. He outlines seven major types of damage that cause the problems associated with aging and the means to combat each (12:15).
Repairing damage, “maintenance”, could be enough to keep us going for a very long time, and in a very healthy state. In essence, de Grey is debunking the myth that getting old and frail is a necessity. Instead, he proposes that regenerative medicine, which is advancing quite rapidly, may provide longevity by the steady and cautious repair of our systems down to the cellular level. It’s an idea that requires us to rethink our attitudes about aging. The only real barrier between us and living longer could be our apathy in pursuing this kind of research.
[screen capture and video credit: TEDMED]
[source: SENS, TEDMED]
Tags: Aubrey De Grey, immortality wizard, regenerative medicine, SENS Foundation, TEDMED
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Talk of the Nation
Is Stem Cell Research Making Progress?
May 21, 2010 … But we’ve heard a lot of news about stem cells. Where do we stand? What’s the state of stem cell research? Are we going to see any real breakthroughs? …
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127037405
http://tinyurl.com/25lxqa8
I agree 100% with Aubrey de Grey. In my opinion aging is no different to any other disease and like all diseases aging is ultimately treatable given the requisite technology. We cannot afford to sit back and simply accept that because everyone in history has lived and died we must follow the same path. It is a mistake to view aging as a fact of life set in stone when science has progressed to the level where we have the ability to begin the search for a cure. We might not be there yet but we are within striking distance of adding 20 or 30 years to our life expectancy and as Aubrey himself points out increases in life expectancy will be incremental and there is not going to be a sudden magic pill which you simply take and then live forever. The essence of the engineering approach advocated by Aubrey is to manage aging, what he proposes is not a cure but a case of repairing the damage that occurs as we age at various intervals and not to stop the process but to allow the aging process to continue and repair the damage as it arises in the same way you maintain a house or car. This engineering approach is a case of taking advantage of improvements in technology as they occur and not to attempt to cure aging in its entirety and it is in this area that people sometimes fail to grasp what Aubrey de Grey is seeking to achieve.
What I find interesting is something that Aubrey often points out. This is that we have already discovered the seven biochemical processes which are the root cause of aging. The first was discovered in the mid 1950s, the last almost 30 years ago in 1981. The importance of the amount of time that has elapsed since the discovery of the last of the seven is that it took less time to discover the entire list than has passed since and nothing else has been found. Now factor in the massive increase in our knowledge of biology that has taken place over that time and it seems virtually certain that these seven causes are all there are – cure those and you cure aging!
I recommend checking these out:
Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs That Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime (Aubrey de Grey and Michael Rae)
ISBN-10: 0312367066
ISBN-13: 978-0312367060
Transcend: Nine Steps to Living Well Forever (Ray Kurzweil and Terry Grossman MD)
ISBN-10: 1605299561
I would also check out the following regarding Aubrey de Grey
http://www.citywire.co.uk/personal/-/retirement/news-and-features/content.aspx?ID=399808&Page=3
and also the following about Ray Kurzweil if this lot does not wet your appetite for joining the war on aging nothing will!
http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DtQitQH8Fu_8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntY01qoIdus
I look forward to the fast approaching day when the nose of politics and economics is no longer stuck into science; when we no longer have such absurd policies as teaching the groundless established ‘food groups’ model of nutrition, legislating against cannabis, while allowing feckless studies on potential food additives and pesticides.
Once people start eating the healthiest that nature can provide, with the variety and freshness brought about using hydroponics, permaculture and emerging technology, these problems will fade significantly and make Aubrey’s job far easier.
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