'Eternal Youth': yesterday's dream – tomorrow's reality

By Dick Pelletier

      

     Imagine playing football at age 200 with your great-great grandchildren, or boarding a hyperspace ship to visit relatives on Mars. If life extension scientists achieve their goals, regardless of age, your "rejuvenated" body of the future will soon become ageless and remain forever healthy, enabling you to enjoy all the technology wonders predicted for the 21st century and beyond.

     A growing number of researchers from around the world believe that eternal health and youth can be realized. Aging is a destructive biochemical event, experts say, and scientists are on the brink of developing interventions for all of its life-destroying processes.

     In a recent 60 Minutes interview, anti-aging guru Aubrey de Grey said that scientific research will soon radically extend lifespans. "First generation therapies will give us maybe thirty extra years of healthy living," de Grey said; "new therapies will then add another thirty years, always keeping us one step ahead of the grim reaper."

     Futurist Ray Kurzweil, in his best-selling book Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever, confirmed that we are in early stages of an anti-aging revolution. "By 2020," Kurzweil says, "biotech upgrades will add more than one year of life expectancy to our lives each year."

     British Telecom's Ian Pearson makes an even bolder prediction. This acclaimed futurologist believes that advances over the next three decades will be sufficient for us to make a realistic stab at ending death. "Unless one is unfortunate enough to die from an accident or other violence, many alive today have a good chance of not dying at all," Pearson says.

     The following list describes advances that will eliminate much of the suffering, sickness, and deaths that plague humanity today; and could also help achieve the dream of 'eternal youth':

• Cancer – Genetic and nano-based therapies will soon kill cancer cells without harming normal cells. The National Cancer Institute recently accepted a challenge by its director to eliminate all pain, suffering, and death from this horrific disease by 2015.
  
  
• Obesity – 80% of children from obese parents experience weight problems, while only 14% of kids from normal parents become overweight. Genetic breakthroughs expected 2010-to-2020 will drastically curb this fast-growing epidemic.
  
  
• Heart disease – United Therapeutics has developed a technique that modifies cells and injects them into the bloodstream to replace damaged heart tissues. This and other research could eliminate America’s number one killer by 2020, experts say.
  
  
• Mental fitness – Drugs developed during the next decade will strive to put an end to Alzheimer's, Parkinson’s, dementia, and other mind problems; plus abolish "senior moments" and raise intelligence levels for everyone.
  
  
• Medical nanobots – Congress recently passed a $3.7-billion medical research bill, a portion of which could lead to non-biological machines traveling the human bloodstream to repair cells. Many benefits from this program will be realized in the next decade and by mid-2020s, microscopic-size ‘bots could be cruising through our bodies keeping us forever young.

     These advances could return many of today's older generation to an earlier stage of development; to a more youthful form. The smart, sexy, strong years, once thought long lost for todays 'boomers and seniors, might soon be recaptured as we enter this "magical future" time.

This article appeared in various print publications and on-line blogs. Comments always welcome.