Humans are made of dreams. Of unfulfilled desires. And it is said that there is no worse nightmare than having achieved all your dreams and desires. In the aftermath of this success, there is no reason to get out of bed. Motivation lost. Don’t worry, almost no one gets all their pretensions. Constant dissatisfaction always surrounds the most dreamers. And also to the visionaries. People who have amassed immense fortunes from relatively simple ideas and now use them for many reasons, some of them far removed from the primary goal of discovery or invention. And these pioneers now look at space, the last physical frontier, not counting the underground world. And they want to open the world to a new tourism with slender and design ships. When prices go down, if I arrive on time, I’m sure I’ll buy a ticket. But they also look at biological boundaries, and beyond the Holy Grail of our brain, they have focused their attention on how to slow down aging. These days it has been made public the creation of an international research effort with private funds endowed very generously by fight the footprint of the passage of years on our body. My knees have rejoiced at this, also receiving a standing ovation from the rest of the organs and tissues. Particularly it seems to me excellent news and sure that, although it is fruitful only in a small part, it will serve to better understand our biological clocks and know how to string them in an improved and more effective way.
On holiday in the Matarranya I looked at a century-old olive tree. A tree that has seen several generations of humans pass by. Immutable from its elegance and beauty. Beyond the plant kingdom, there are many animals that live much longer than humans. Of some of them it is even almost impossible to accurately calculate their age. There is no reliable data that any human has lived beyond 120 years. Stories are not created that tell about walking. What is certain is that thanks to social and health advances, today the life expectancy of humans is the highest in its history. There have never been so many nineties like now. But the barrier seems to be there. Surely crossing this line will only be possible using techniques that change our DNA. We will live longer, but we may be a little less human. Another thing. Neither better nor worse. In any case very similar.
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We hear about it on social media, advertising and social media anti-aging medicine (‘Anti-aging’ if we want to be more sophisticated). The vast majority of times these approaches have little clearly demonstrated scientific basis. One of the few cases where there is a real foundation has to do with proteins that regulate caloric restriction. Some of these compounds, which were a “ball hit” at the level of pharmaceutical acquisitions a few years ago, are used in certain anti-wrinkle cosmetic creams. Good business. Younger on the outside, but just as old on the inside. Another interesting line of research that has also resulted in millionaire figures has to do with the following experiment: the transfusion of blood from young mice to aged rodents rejuvenated the latter. Forgive the experts for simplifying the experiment. It reminds me a bit of bathing in milk or maiden blood, according to legend. However, one of the areas of science where more hope is being placed, and hence the investment of the billionaires mentioned at the beginning of this article, is in cellular reprogramming. Change the machinery of an old cell to make it young. For a few years now we have been able to do this to a certain extent in the laboratory: we can isolate differentiated cells from the skin and introduce factors that change the expression of genes. originate a stem cell. This undifferentiated cell is very young and has the ability to re-originate all the components of our body. How to control this process, re-secure it and apply it to whole organisms or individuals will address many of the research that is being done in the coming years.
Discoveries await us that will make us rethink how we approach life. We are already that 30 years is new adolescence and an 80 year old person is looking for a partner for a long relationship. Keep us in an ever-young state, like wandering portraits of Dorian Gray, it’s a terribly ambitious goal, though looking for healthier aging is perhaps a more affordable short-term goal. Getting our chronological age to advance, but freezing our biological age. Many laboratories in the world are on this path right now. We will be on the lookout for events, if time and health allow.