You may be surprised to know that today the maximum human lifespan is estimated at somewhere between 115 and 120 years. For instance Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment, is believed to be the oldest person who ever lived. She died in 1997 at 122 years old.
Experts say, preserving the health of people in their 80’s, 90’s and beyond is a critical challenge facing the U.S. Over the next 30 years, the number of centenarians in this country is projected to quadruple to roughly 422,000 by 2054, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, while the population of people over 65 may reach 82 million in the next 25 years.
In the not-too-distant future, your doctor will be able to use anti-aging supplements and drugs to “treat” aging overall, delaying the onset of age related diseases. It may be a combination of targeted therapy, immunotherapy drugs activating the immune system and a personalized mRNA vaccine (which triggers a cancer-specific immune response). It could lead to “doubling or tripling five-year survival,”minimally invasive image-guided surgeries, followed by personalized vaccines after surgery, which may prevent recurrence of early-stage cancers.
Your annual check up will most likely be a lot different as well. Beyond basics such as glucose levels and triglycerides, the checkup of the future may consist of testing thousands of bio markers – molecules found in your blood and other bodily fluids or tissues that can reveal potential or emerging diseases before they pose a threat.
Some scientist believe that aging can even be reversed. Here’s the theory: day by day, year by year our DNA replicates itself as we discard old cells and grow new ones. But like a copier running low on ink, the duplication gets less and less accurate and genetic information is lost. That’s what creates aging.
What would happen if we could prevent the information loss? Dr. McKenna wonders, “if we intervene in the first part of life, we may not be able to eliminate disease, but maybe we can compress it closer to the end of life.”
And that, my friends, could add up to an awful lot of candles on our birthday cakes.