Chapter 9. Myths of Life Extension
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Chapter 9. Myths of Life Extension Ever since humans became fully aware that they will get old and die, individuals must have wondered about the possibility of extending longevity, or achieving immortality on earth. This has resulted in innumerable myths relating to supposed examples of life-extension, one of the most notable being the 969 year lifespan of Methuselah, as recorded in the Bible. Christian fundamentalists are liable to say that in those days people lived much longer than they do today! These are many other claims, and far too many to list here. The Guiness Book of Records has stated that maximum lifespans of people and animals are some of the hardest records to document. Some of the claims of human longevity have occurred in the 20th century, and as in some cases they were initially accepted by scientists, and they provide good examples of how people are deceived. Many people living in the Caucasus region of the ex-Soviet Union claimed their ages were over 120 years, or even 160 years. There was even a touring troup of centenarian dancers, so it is not surprising the claims received wide publicity, and also wide acceptance. The oldest people were usually males which is intrinsically unlikely as human females live longer that males. Careful scrutiny of these cases, particularly by the gerontologist Zhores Medvedev, has shown that none are backed up by reliable records. In some cases, individuals took on the identity of their father, in others they exaggerated their age to escape military conscription, or they simply added on years, because the societies in which they lived respected the wisdom and experience of very old people. Another well-known set of claims of extreme old age was at Vilcabamba in South America. Again, some scientists (in this case anthropologists) believed the reports because the dates of baptism were recorded in the local church registers. More careful scrutiny showed that the entries usually referred to the individual’s father, with exactly the same name, or even that of a grandfather. The existence of properly authenticated birth certificates has made it possible to assess in the last century the true picture, at least in developed countries. There is no doubt that the number of centenarians is rising all the time, which is due to improved health care in these countries. However, the number of individuals reaching each additional year after 100 drops off rapidly, and it is quite rare for any centenarian to reach the second decade (ie. more than 110), and extremely few 72 Chapter 9 reach 115. The longest lifespan recorded with certainty is that of the French woman Jeanne Calment who died in 1997 at the age of 122 years. Although the improvement in medical care has undoubtedly increased the expectation of life throughout the world, there is little evidence that it has increased the maximum human lifespan. The wish to live a long lifespan has also been accompanied by the belief that there may be ways and means of achieving this end. One was the search for the fountain of youth, another was the alchemists fruitless attempts to find the philosopher’s stone, or the elixir of life. In more recent times, some have considered the properties of the intestinal flora of carp, which were reported, incorrectly, to live several hundred years. This was the theme exploited by Aldous Huxley in his novel After Many a Summer. A more serious claim was made by a famous scientist Elie Metchnikoff, that one of the major causes of ageing was the production of toxins by bacteria in our intestines. He also proposed that yoghurt containing billions of live lactobacilli could neutralise these toxins and extend the lifespan. In support of his view, he cited the long lifespan of inhabitants of the Caucasus, whose diet consistently included yoghurt. Metchnikoff’s views lead to an explosion in the sale and consumption of yoghurt in Western countries. These early claims have been followed by many others in recent times. Anna Aslan, a Romanian physician, believed that procaine, incorporated into a product known as Gerovital, rejuvenated elderly people. In this case her claims were backed up by her treatment of elderly down-and-outs in Bucharest. Once provided with a clean, hygienic environment, and well fed, it was not surprising that they showed rather clear signs of rejuvenation! Aslan’s claims were never substantiated, but there has been no shortage of other comparable ones, each with many adherents. One treatment popular in Germany and Switzerland is “cell therapy”. This takes several forms, but the basic claim is that extracts of foetal cells of sheep or other animals, when injected into people, has significant rejuvenating effects. A course of treatment is very expensive, and having paid this sum, clients are liable to justify it by saying it was successful. More important, the clinics which provide this treatment have never supplied, from their extensive records, any data showing that their clients had an increased lifespan, in comparison to the population at large. One can be sure that if lifespan extension actually occurred, the facts would be included in the brochures which extoll the beneficial effects of the treatment. There is, of course, absolutely no scientific basis for the claims made. Myths of Life Extension 73 Indeed, the treatments are potentially dangerous if unknown viruses are present in the cell-free extracts. Many books have been published which claim to have discovered the means to significantly increase longevity. A typical title might be: How to live to 100 years, and there are many others with similar titles. These books appear because publishers know that they will sell very well. Needless to say, the authors of these books do not, on average, live any longer than members of the general population. If any single author did live to a very advanced age, they would probably achieve huge publicity and sales. Some authors have become very prosperous by making huge claims of life extension in their books. One such person is Dr Deepak Chopra in the USA who wrote a best selling book Ageless Body, Timeless Mind: the Quantum Alternative to Growing Old. His promise is that illness and even the ageing process can be banished by the power of the mind. He also explains that his views are all firmly grounded in quantum theory. He also combined his writings on well-being and longlife with spiritualism, producing a certain recipe for success in a gullible market. Many years before that George Bernard Shaw wrote a play Back to Methuselah, with a very long preface. This contains much biological nonsense, and assertions that one can “will oneself” to postpone death for a very long time. Since he lived 94 years, he did quite well. Another fruitless quest for immortality is the freezing of dead bodies in liquid nitrogen. There are companies in the USA who claim that if a customer’d body if preserved in this way, the ways and means of bringing the body back to life will be found in the future. Naturally, the freezing and storage of corpses is expensive, so the gullible customers when alive pay out a considerable amount of money, and also have to agree to leave an agreed sum in their will. The result is a considerable profit for the company. The gullible public, especially in the USA, spends enormous amounts of money on a variety of “life extension” products, sold mainly in healthfood shops or by mail order and the net. As a result of clever marketing, sales are burgeoning. In no case is there any data documenting beneficial effects, but nevertheless the manufacturers and suppliers manage to pursuade the public that such benefits are to be expected. The huge industry that has been built up is supported by innumerable articles in magazines on rejuvenation, regeneration and life extension. These are often backed up statements such as: “Scien- tists’ expect that in the future it will be possible to live to X number 74 Chapter 9 of years,” where X is usually considerably greater that the maximum recorded lifespan of 122 years. This brings me to the new movement known as “anti-ageing medicine,” and its offshoot that champions the slogan “scientifically engineered negligible senescence” (SENS), the brainchild of Aubrey de Grey in Cambridge, UK. One of the the leading propagandists for anti-ageing medicine, Dr Ronald M. Klatz, wrote in the forward to the book Advances in Anti-Ageing Medicine: “Within the next 50 years or so, assuming an individual can avoid becoming the victim of major trauma or homicide, It is entirely possible that he or she will be able to live virtually for ever.” Aubrey de Grey has said: “I think the first person to live to 1000 may today be 60 years old.” How is it possible to make these claims? The first requirement is to ignore the huge literature on ageing research. This includes the four books I cited in the Preface, and the fact that scientists who are familiar with the field have discovered the biological reasons for the existence of human ageing. The second is to ignore the enormous amount of information that has been obtained by the study of human age- associated disease. In other words to ignore the many well-documented textbooks on human pathology. The third is to propose that in the future stem cell technology, and other technologies, will allow vulnerable parts of the body to be replaced and/or repaired. The new “bionic” man will therefore escape from ageing. It took millions of years for humans to evolve to their present body design, which was outlined in Chapter 2.