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Life at 140?

rampage jackson

rampage jackson

Registered User
By Steve Hargreaves
Special to CNN

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Imagine a world with no cancer, Alzheimer's disease or diabetes, where people routinely live to be 140 years old.

Although outside conventional medical opinion, that world may be just a couple of decades away, according to James Canton, author of a new book, "The Extreme Future: The Top Trends That Will Reshape the World for the Next 5, 10, and 20 Years."

Canton, who has served as a consultant on future trends for clients including Motorola and the White House, said advances in information technology, biotechnology, neuroscience, and nanotechnology will allow for radical advances in medicine and the treatment of diseases.

"Once medicine becomes boldly proactive, then you're talking about eliminating 70, 80 percent of diseases," Canton said in an interview. "We're just on the edge of this. It's going to happen very shortly."

Canton uses proprietary quantitative and qualitative market research to forecast trends on the future. He currently serves as a senior fellow at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management and is an adviser to the National Science Foundation.

Canton believes that the mapping of the human genome will allow doctors to peer into our medical futures, disable disease-causing genes or pinpoint exactly when an organ will fail.

Replacing that organ would be much easier than it is today, he claims, as genetic engineering will allow organs to be grown and harvested, eliminating the need for long waiting lists.

And advances in medications will refresh the brain, warding off aliments like Alzheimer's or other afflictions that have already set in, he said.

"Cancer and diabetes will be managed diseases in a decade," said Canton. Managing those diseases should lead to gradually increasing life spans, he said. Eventually, Canton said, "Birthday parties for people who are 120, 140 will be commonplace."

But there are doubters who say Canton is not presenting an accurate picture of the future.

"I think that's a pretty optimistic assessment," said Michael Smyer, director of the Center for Aging and Work at Boston College. "We're making progress, but ... that progress is not in the next 10 or 15 years."

Anne Newman, a professor of epidemiology and medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, said some genetic manipulation in other animals has led to dramatic increases in life span. But manipulating genes to increase the human life span is not being done, she said. Instead, the emphasis is on treating diseases.

'We feel like we have a revolution going on, but it won't be so extreme," she said. "We've increased the number of people getting old, but we haven't increased the life span of the species. The average [age] has been increasing because more people are being given a chance to get there."

The National Center for Health Statistics, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said a man born in 2004 is expected to live 75.2 years, while a woman is expected to live 80.4 years.

The agency stressed these are not projections, but estimates based on current mortality rates.

Canton said the baby boomer generation is the driving force behind advances in medicine. Eyeing the boomer's wealth, companies from across the medical spectrum are pouring money into drugs and technologies of all kinds that will help people live longer lives, Canton said. Whether they will succeed in increasing the human life span appears to be an open question.

"It's quite debatable and fun to argue," said Newman.

Canton believes the human life span will increase and that the ensuing societal changes will be monumental.

"This is the big one," he said. "This makes the Internet seem small.
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Boy wont that just throw a monkey wrench into the all ready troubled social security.

Other than that, it sounds good to me!
 
That's the thing though - I think the human lifespan caps out at ~120. You might be able to live healther and be productive closer to that number, but once you approach it there's going to be a rapid decline and you'll drop dead.

In order to *really* extend human lifespans, there's going to have to be some genetic tweaking that defeats the mechanism that tells your cells to grow old and die.

Ill be the 1st to sign up:)

BV
 
BigVrunga said:
That's the thing though - I think the human lifespan caps out at ~120. You might be able to live healther and be productive closer to that number, but once you approach it there's going to be a rapid decline and you'll drop dead.

In order to *really* extend human lifespans, there's going to have to be some genetic tweaking that defeats the mechanism that tells your cells to grow old and die.

Ill be the 1st to sign up:)

BV
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Those are great theories, I really hope they get put into practice. Getting old sucks, plain and simple.

BV
 
BigVrunga said:
Those are great theories, I really hope they get put into practice. Getting old sucks, plain and simple.

BV
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I had a discussion with some people about this over the holiday break.

Most of who were of old age and set in there ways saying that what that article proposes is impossible, mostly based on religious beliefs... "That is playing God", or "God wont allow that to happen", and if it does happen who would want to live that long anyway? I was like well sign me up!

Nonetheless, its a debateable topic, but fun to discuss.
 
Most of who were of old age and set in there ways saying that what that article proposes is impossible, mostly based on religious beliefs... "That is playing God", or "God wont allow that to happen", and if it does happen who would want to live that long anyway? I was like well sign me up!

Nonetheless, its a debateable topic, but fun to discuss.
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Ive always felt that the 'You shouldnt play God" argument is pathetic when it attempts to stifle scientific innovation. Were we playing god when we invented fire? Or cured polio?

No doubt humans will find a way to dramatically extend lifespan eventually - I hope Im around for that but who knows:)

BV
 
BigVrunga said:
Ive always felt that the 'You shouldnt play God" argument is pathetic when it attempts to stifle scientific innovation. Were we playing god when we invented fire? Or cured polio?

No doubt humans will find a way to dramatically extend lifespan eventually - I hope Im around for that but who knows:)

BV
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My opinion is if God didnt want us to do these things he wouldnt have made us capable of having or acquiring the knowledge to do such things.
 
UNCnate said:
My opinion is if God didnt want us to do these things he wouldnt have made us capable of having or acquiring the knowledge to do such things.
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"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use"- Galileo Galilei
 
Beelzebub said:
"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use"- Galileo Galilei
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Never seen that quote, but nice nonetheless.
 
We already have the answer to immortality, and its called cancer.

cancer cells possess self repairing telomeres. telomeres are present at the end of chromosomes and get a little shorter eacch time a cell undergoes mitosis. eventually they run out...

cancer cells have the ability to continually replace their telomeres. they are immortal cells.

however if we all live to 1000....evolution will more or less come to a halt. if it takes millions of years to evolve at the rate at which we are dying right now, how slow will it progress if we extend out lifespan by an odd 900 years or so?
 
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