At the Beijing parade for the eightieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War, the Chinese state television cameras captured a curious curtain. Walking side by side, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping were listened to, thanks to a microphone that remained open, while chatting the possibility of extending the limits of human life. According to the Russian president, biotechnology and organ transplants will allow in the future to remain young and live longer, even to become immortal. A statement to which the Chinese counterpart has a condescending answer, confiding that: “It is expected that by the end of the century it will be possible to live up to 150 years”.
Is this really the case? Are we one step away from a revolution in the science of longevity? The answer, unfortunately, is that despite the wishes of the leaders of the two superpowers, so it is not. To date, no technology capable of drastically lengthening the duration of life is even close to giving results.
Transplants
Let’s start with transplants, the technology cited by Putin as a possible road to immortality. Obviously, we are not talking about traditional transplants: a donor transplant exposes operating risks, infections, and forces to take life -so -called therapies that in turn increase the chances of infections, tumors, and other ailments. Although transplants are life -saving operations, and they will give years and more decades to those who receive them, think of becoming immortal in this way – replacing the organs that abandon us a piece by finding a compatible donor – at least for the moment goes far beyond science fiction, given the chronic deficiency of organs intended for transplantation, and long -term problems related to the rejection and the therapies necessary to combat it.
More likely that Putin refers to regenerative medicine techniques, which would use stem cells, cloning techniques, genetic engineering on animal organs and autologous transplants (i.e. organs produced by the recipient cells) to cultivate spare parts and tissues to be implanted when and where needed.
“Artificial” children: the research of Putin’s daughter
In this sense, the Russian president probably knows what he is about, also because it is known to have somehow the ball of research in the field of longevity: just last year he promoted the creation of a state institution dedicated to research in the field of cell rejuvenation, the regeneration of organs and neurotechnologies, and finances research in this field of his daughter Maria Vorontsova. For genetic research alone, the Kremlin had allocated – already in 2019 – 2 billion dollars and appointed Vorontsova in the committee of the 30 members who supervise the works. Of the state of the art of research had spoken on Nature The Russian molecular biologist Denis Ribrikov who – among the controversies – had started research on human genome editing techniques to increase life expectancy.
The creation of fabrics without rejection to be transplanted to the human body, however, is still in his childhood. Usually, it starts from stem cells taken by patient, which are made to mature in the cells of the organ you need, grown on a three -dimensional impaling that guarantees to obtain the desired shape, and therefore implanted in the patient. To date, results have been obtained by working on simple fabrics, but the creation of complex fabrics or even whole human organs with these technologies, as far as it obviously represents the point of arrival of the research, is still absolutely impossible.
The xenotrapriants, which use genetically modified animal organs, are a little further on. We are seeing the very first attempts in recent years: heart and pork kidney transplants that have achieved promising, but still completely experimental results (patients have not survived more than a couple of months). And since these are procedures that require life immunosuppressive therapies, they would not however represent a way to immortality. Certainly regenerative medicine, autologous and xenotrapriants transplants are intended, in the future, to treat many serious diseases, and extending human life in this sense.
Realistically, however, there are still decades before seeing them really land in clinical practice. And there is still another problem: aging is a phenomenon that affects the whole organism, and not only this, or that organ.
A biological limit
By aging, our body accumulates damage at the level of organs, tissues, cells. But not only that: it is the same genetic material within them that consume, cell replication after cell replication. The topic is extremely complex, and largely still in the study phase. But the juice is that even if he could avoid or cure any disease potentially capable of killing us, he would still come the moment when the body is too compromised to go on.
The expectation is partly written in the genes, in part it depends on the environment in which we grow, the one in which we age, our habits and the vizzi, the diet, the pollution and a thousand other more or less modifiable factors. In any case, even in the best of cases all these variables cannot extend our lives to infinity: sooner or later we are all destined to die. The question then is: how far can it be pushed? What is the maximum duration of human life?
In 2021, a study published on Nature Communication He used markers present in the blood to estimate if there was a theoretical limit for human life, concluding that it is, and that between 120 and 150 years of age. The conclusions were reported by many newspapers, and perhaps it is to this research that the Chinese president was referring to by talking about lengthening the life expectancy at 150 years of the century. But in reality the study says something very different: the inevitable descendant trajectory of the human body necessarily culminates within a century and a half, but many reasons remain for which, almost certainly, it is destined to end more early.
This is what underlines a study published last October on Nature Agingwhich analyzed the statistics of the eight more long -lived populations in the world, identifying an extremely evident slowdown in the lengthening of the average life expectancy. According to their calculations, today only 15 percent of women and 5% of men are destined to reach 100 years of age. And going further, speaking of average life, would be almost impossible. Unless you find the cure for most of the diseases that affect the human species, or to develop futuristic techniques capable of radically slowing down biological aging.
Hack the human body
Obviously, many are looking for a way to hack the human body and slow down as much as possible the effects of aging. Currently, there is no therapy or technique that has proven to be truly effective, despite the presence on the market of a myriad of supplements, drinks, foods and treatments that promise to succeed.
In terms of research, drugs are studied to mimic the effects of calorie restriction (one of the few strategies that, at least in animals, has shown some effects on longevity). Therapies with stem cells. And even gene therapies designed to manipulate the genetic determinants of aging. Pnevento approach, however, still produced results outside the animal models, considered not very representative of the human body, in this case, due to the important biological differences between us and a mouse, or a worm, and for the drastically different duration of our lives.
Speaking from a strictly scientific point of view, therefore, lengthening life is possible, but solely working on prevention: a healthy and active life, a balanced diet, avoid vices such as alcohol or smoking, living in an unlawful environment, help to minimize the certain environmental environmental and the risks of developing preventable diseases. Furthermore, the so -called secondary prevention, that is, adherence to the screening and medical analyzes recommended by scientific societies, guarantees an early diagnosis and more effective therapies. More than this, for the moment, it cannot be done. And nothing lets you imagine that the situation is destined to change, at least in useful times for current generations of human beings.
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