The Fountain of Youth & Living Forever (Part 2 of 2)

These are things now that are in the realm of science fiction but I think that people in the coming years will start hearing more and more explosive results as aging research is refined. Many people would then wonder about the possibility of reversing the aging process (i.e. if someone who is 60 can become 30 again) Well, we may be able to reset the biological clock by which we will be able to rejuvenate human tissue. We know that for example, sex hormones can rejuvenate tissue. But the problem with this, as many women know—is cancer. In some sense if you run high octane gas in your Ferrari it’s going to run a lot better, but at the same time the car itself will receive more wear and tear as a direct result; and genetic wear and tear is called cancer. So even though estrogen (for women) and androgen (for males) will make us look younger, rejuvenate our immune system, increase muscle and decrease animal fat, the price we pay is that we are making ourselves go hyper-active and there is a process by which these cells can throw out a few “gears and bolts”. This is cancer. But as we start to understand cancer more and more. we may be able to have the benefits of sex hormones without the after effects of cancer.

So as we understand more and more which genes are involved with each part of the aging process, we will be able to tweak things around a bit. There will be tremendous advances in gene therapy and being able to analyze genes in general. We already have a DNA chip which is a small computer chip that is etched with tiny micro-cracks. When you wash a fluid such as blood over the chip, it will register genes by looking at the DNA that falls into the cracks. This simple gene analysis takes mere minutes whereas it used to take months and sometimes years to get a DNA analysis. It’s these types of breakthroughs that are revolutionizing medicine and giving us a leg-up to understanding how our bodies internal processes work.