Back to Debating Limits to Human Life Span Again

While it is self-evident that longevity is limited in the practical sense, in that one or more degenerative processes of aging eventually make it so unlikely for survival to continue that everyone dies somewhere before age 120, that doesn't mean that longevity is limited in any other sense. If we alter the consequences of the underlying processes of aging, by repairing the damage that they cause, by changing the process, and so forth, then longevity will increase. While the authors of today's open access paper make generally sensible statements about the nature of aging, they seem far too skeptical that anything of practical use can be achieved in the near future in the field of rejuvenation research. They mount an argument from complexity, against the ability to increase maximum life span from any single intervention into processes of aging, that doesn't seem at all sound to me. If anything, the demonstrated network of interactions between processes of aging, and between processes and cellular metabolism, is an argument for addressing any one process to be broadly beneficial, eliminating harmful effects throughout cellular biochemistry and tissue function. That evolution has not produced this outcome in any given species is not an argument against the benefits of, for example, removing senescent cells from aging tissues. It is more an argument against the idea that evolutionary selection operates strongly on matters relating to later life. Species lifespan is most lik...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs