“People born in the 21st century, such as present-day students, can live a whole century or more, because their health will not be comparable to the level of health ever in the mankind history,” Professor Austad notes.
The scientist believed that towards the end of the last century, a new approach to health focused not on the diseases but the underlying aging processes, began to emerge. “Aging is the biggest factor in almost everything that kills us today,” he emphasizes. - Starting with tiny roundworms and Drosophila flies, the researchers have found that treating aging as if it were a disease is not difficult. We could do this by changing genes, changing diets, and, most surprisingly, using some existing drugs designed for other purposes. These treatments have worked not only in the simplest animals; they also worked on mice - mammals like us.”
Professor Austad is confident that people should stop thinking about age-related diseases as independent entities. “Aging associated diseases have many coinciding causes, so treatment affects most or all of these diseases. Thus, treatment of aging can dramatically change the mortality rate,” the expert thinks.
Photos are from open sources.
