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[didierc]

On page http://www.telegraph.../scilife127.xml, you will find the following article. Very interesting. Did somebody already write something about it (or about the article in Nature)?

Secrets of immortality could be tantalisingly close

The most extensive survey of anti ageing research ever conducted has concluded that a longevity pill to "cure" ageing remains a possibility.

However, the current state of knowledge is inadequate to be sure.

The inevitability of ageing and death has fascinated humanity for millennia and is at the heart of the most ancient known mythology, the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, where a Sumerian king tells of his desire to escape death and his ultimate realisation that only through lasting works of culture can he achieve immortality.

Many scientists work on mechanisms that determine lifespan in "model organisms" such as worms, flies and mice but there have been persistent doubts about whether this work is really relevant to humans and whether we may yet manipulate lifespan with drugs, genetic knowledge or fine-tuning diet.

In a Review "Puzzles, promises and cure for aging" published in the journal Nature, Prof Jan Vijg at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and Dr Judith Campisi of the Buck Institute, California for Age Research and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, California, say that "we cannot know, given the state of our current knowledge, whether an elixir of extremely long life is possible."

They argue that there is no question human lifespan will almost certainly increase modestly over the coming decades and that there is no know scientific reason why aging cannot be prevented, similar to the goal of preventing individual age-related diseases.

However, they question whether current knowledge has reached the state where postponing human ageing and natural death for many decades, possible indefinitely, is feasible, and pour cold water on claims that understanding molecules linked with longevity, such as sirtuins, provides all the answers.

"The question is, can we mimic the evolutionary process to the extent that senescence becomes essentially negligible? At this stage, the answer must be that we do not know.

"Although there is no scientific reason for not striving to cure ageing-similar to what we profess to do for cancer and other diseases-our current understanding makes it impossible to assert that indefinite postponement is feasible."

Only a more complete understanding of basic ageing mechanisms and their relationship with disease will allow us to develop integrated strategies to safely and effectively increase human health and lifespan.

"Current findings involving simple organisms leave no doubt that lifespan is plastic," said Dr Campisi, "But research needs to take into account the idiosyncrasies of model organisms, and the complexity of humans who do not live in laboratories."

They also advocate a search for molecules - biomarkers - that would better define and characterise the degenerative processes underlying mortality.

"There is much work that remains to be done to unravel the causes of aging," said Prof Vijg. "All interventions currently on the horizon will fail to increase longevity substantially if the ultimate cause(s) of aging does not lend itself to available treatments."