Introduction
In recent years we have witnessed a remarkable development of the sciences applied to human aging. Thanks to the progress made in the medical, economic and social fields, the third age, once perceived as a period of disability and physical decay, has for many become a phase of continued productivity, independence and good health.
The main causes of death (cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases, tumors and diabetes) are the result of a process that in many cases starts already in childhood. Thanks to current knowledge, it is possible to prevent the onset of these diseases by implementing behavioral changes oriented towards regular exercise, a rational management of stress and a sober and balanced eating style, possibly supported by nutritional supplements. The continuous advances in genetics will allow us to intervene more and more early on individual risk factors, proposing more effective and personalized antiaging programs. Biotechnological sciences, for their part, will provide the means to intervene directly at the root of the problem, thanks to stem cells, recombinant DNA, cloning and gene therapies. Finally, in defense of human longevity, nanotechnologies and the ever more developed artificial intelligence will take the field. All these efforts will help man to slow down and improve more and more the inevitable biological phenomenon of aging.
Article index
Aging and life expectancy Evolutionary theory is not on our side Grandma's hypothesis The aging process is no one's friend The three ways of longevity 1st street: prevention 2nd street: biotechnological revolution 3rd street: nanotechnology revolution and artificial intelligence Conclusions and bibliographyAging and life expectancy
According to recent estimates, children born at the beginning of the twenty-first century have a life expectancy of about one hundred years. Today, we have at our disposal sufficient technologies and medical knowledge to allow a significant segment of the population to switch off one or more candles. With the current pace, human life expectancy is growing by about 2.2 months a year, according to a trend that has remained almost constant over the last sixty years.
Thanks to the rapid technological progress, various authors hypothesize that this trend will not only not slow down in the coming years, but will continue to grow at an even faster pace. Other researchers hypothesize more pessimistic scenarios and, while not excluding the possibility that a considerable number of people can live longer, fix the maximum duration of human life between 85 and 90 years.
Evolutionary theory is not on our side
The roots of this fascinating hypothesis lie in extremely remote times, when in order to survive, man was forced to fight face to face against animals and weather. In this age of scarcity, our ancestors certainly did not know the overwhelming abundance of Christmas dinners or the endless expanses of food placed on supermarket shelves.
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On the contrary, they were constantly competing with nature to get the food they needed for their livelihood. In this sad scenario, the struggle to grab the reduced food resources was also extended to individuals belonging to the same species. Seen in this light, excessive survival of the older members of the tribe was detrimental to the very evolution of the community, as it took away the already limited nutrient resources from the group. For the sake of the species, man had to live long and healthy to reproduce and raise his children. Once this primary biological function was fulfilled, always for the collective good, it would have had to stand aside, leaving room for younger individuals. For this reason it was important that at some point in life the "aging genes" were activated, capable of rapidly initiating the subject towards a cruel destiny. By eliminating the older ones, younger individuals had greater chances to survive and contribute to the evolution of the species according to the rules of Darwinian selection.
In the last 100, 000 years, human DNA has not undergone major modifications and the "aging genes" mentioned previously continue to be part of our genetic alphabet. The difference, compared to then, is the recent disappearance of those criteria that for millennia have helped to select these genes. Although many people still struggle daily against hunger, their condition is essentially due to political and social issues, since even today there are natural and technological resources to erase hunger in the world.
Thanks to recent advances, mankind no longer has any reason to take advantage of its short existence. On the contrary, as we shall see in the next paragraph, it has every interest in keeping itself alive longer and healthier.
