Views of the Future

From the Kansas City Star, competing views - both within and without the scientific community - on the future of human longevity and working anti-aging medicine: "Halting the aging process completely is far beyond the current understanding of science, de Grey said. Instead, researchers should act like engineers, repairing damage to the body's cells and tissues before it progresses to disease. The techniques for doing that are within reach ... Austad dismissed de Grey's ideas as mere 'thought experiments.' Austad agreed, however, that progress in delaying aging would come in the next couple of decades. People will live to be 150, he predicted. 'I think that person is alive right now,' he said. ... Scientists may be able to apply some of the lessons learned from basic anti-aging research to develop drugs that prevent metabolic damage or that mimic the beneficial effects of restricting calories ... But those advances are more than a decade away, Michaelis said."

Link: http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/13902165.htm

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