Genes begin to reveal secret of longer life; some scientists predict biblical life spans
JEFF DONN, Associated Press Writer
08-02) 09:31 PDT BOSTON (AP) --
A young man climbs from bed, stares into a mirror and glimpses his future.
He has just turned 34. His body is trim, his hair thick and dark. But what's that around his eyes? Those crow's-feet are getting harder to ignore. And do his teeth look a bit ground down by decades of chewing, or is it his imagination?
He will probably repeat the same check tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow -- about 16,000 more times if he, like the average American, dies at around 80. "I don't think 80 years is long enough. There's a lot of things I want to do," he laments.
But what can he -- or anyone -- do about getting old? He can't stop it, any more than he can dispel rain clouds roiling on the horizon, any more than ancient alchemists could distill a real elixir of immortality.
Or can he?
His name is David Sinclair. He is biologist at Harvard Medical School. His job is to prevent aging.
Catapulted by advances in biotechnology, scores of researchers have begun to pinpoint genes that may prolong human life while delaying its late-stage diseases, frailties and maybe even gray hair and wrinkles. Their remarkable successes in laboratory animals -- like worms that live four times longer than normal -- have already germinated several drug companies. They hope to develop compounds to stretch healthy lifetimes beyond limits once presumed to be fixed.
Some respected researchers envision millions living as long as Jeanne Calment of France, who died at age 122 in 1997. Tom Johnson, a University of Colorado geneticist, thinks people could one day live to 350 years old, spanning the ages like Methuselah and the other biblical patriarchs.
More:
http://www.sfgate.co...1215EDT0502.DTL
