Can the ageing process be prevented?
If you dream of staying younger for longer, scientist Dr David Sinclair may have some good news for you
Text: Grace Ma
We don’t want to be all doom and gloom, but death is inevitable and ageing, the pebbled path towards its finality. It’s a common perception that we would have deteriorating eyesight, mental health issues and other physical ailments as we march towards our 50s, 60s and 70s. Living to 80 and beyond is considered “a full life”.
But what if we could be younger longer, not just in years, but in decades? Turning the clock back to five would be pushing science a bit, but 25 or 35 is doable. What if we can live out the best days of our lives in our 60s instead of bemoaning how they are numbered? That is what Dr David A, Sinclair, a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, believes is possible and is already happening.
Ageing is a disease
In his book Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don’t Have To, Dr Sinclair postulates that there is no biological law that says we must age. He says: “We’re probably still a long way off from a world in which death is a rarity, but we’re not far from pushing it ever farther into the future.”
There is no singular cause for ageing but there is a singular reason, he goes on to add. In TL; DR terms, Sinclair’s Information Theory of Aging is based on the idea that “we become old and susceptible to diseases because our cells lose youthful information”. Age is due to the loss of epigenetic (non-genetic influences on gene expression) information over time. Recover the lost information and you can slow down ageing, just like recovering data from a scratched DVD. He believes that ageing should not be viewed as inevitable and irreversible, but as a disease that can be treated.
With that perception in mind, we would adopt more conducive lifestyle habits instead of going “Yolo to eating everything since we’re gonna die anyway”. Some of Dr Sinclair’s tips: eat more vegetables, legumes and whole grains while consuming less meat, dairy products and sugar.
Restrict your daily calorie intake. For example, skip breakfast (the 16:8 diet) or eat 75 per cent fewer calories two days a week (the 5:2 diet). And that sprint to the grocery store or daily park walks? Don’t compare with your sports junkie neighbour/relative/friend and just do it. Because exercise – any form or length of it – turns on the genes to make us young again on a cellular level. Avoid smoking and the frequent use of plastic bottles and take-out containers, which contain PCBs and other chemicals. And when you can finally go on holiday, rough it out in the cold (to a reasonable extent) as that activates sirtuins (longevity genes).
Researchers have also discovered compounds that could extend lifespan by triggering sirtuins. One of them is resveratrol, an antioxidant produced by plants in times of stress, and incidentally found in red wine (but no, it’s not a pass to imbibe by the barrel). That study prompted research in other sirtuin-activating compounds (STACS), the most notable examples being nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) and Nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN).
In tests on mice, rejuvenated vitality and extended lifespan were observed when both chemicals are injected, but no conclusive scientific evidence has been published yet. Both are, however, widely available in supplement form so it is really up to the individual to judge them truly effective or simply a placebo. If the results are anything like those found in Dr Sinclair’s father, who just cruised past 80 and started running, hiking and exploring ice caves in Austria since he started taking NMN supplements, there is definitely hope.
The next frontier is cellular reprogramming, says Dr Sinclair, where it may be possible to reprogramme cells via pills that stimulate genes and enzymes that bring about lifespan extension.
A second chance at life
Advancement in DNA-sequencing technologies is also opening the way for customised treatments and preventative diagnosis, where tumours and cancers can be detected before they become uncontrollable. “It won’t be long before prescribing a drug without first knowing a patient’s genome will seem medieval,” says Dr Sinclair. Couple this with biotrackers that give up-to-the-minute information in our body functions from heart rate to blood sugar levels and forewarn us of abnormalities, we can well imagine how many lives will be given a second chance (or many chances).
With all these anti-ageing innovations, the light at the end of life’s tunnel may well be something we can run towards in excited anticipation rather than as a resigned plod. We will (hopefully) make wiser consumption choices, think deeper about the world we’re building as it accommodates more inhabitants for a longer time, and look forward to decades of making memories with our best friends and families.
We don’t want to be all doom and gloom, but death is inevitable and ageing, the pebbled path towards its finality. It’s a common perception that we would have deteriorating eyesight, mental health issues and other physical ailments as we march towards our 50s, 60s and 70s. Living to 80 and beyond is considered “a full life”.
But what if we could be younger longer, not just in years, but in decades? Turning the clock back to five would be pushing science a bit, but 25 or 35 is doable. What if we can live out the best days of our lives in our 60s instead of bemoaning how they are numbered? That is what Dr David A, Sinclair, a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, believes is possible and is already happening.
