Why Can T We Live Forever
why can't we live forever?
As we grow old, our own cells begin to betray us. By unraveling the mysteries of aging, scientists may be able to make our lives longer and healthier
IF YOU WERE GIVEN a free hand to plan how your life will end--your last weeks, days, hours and minutes--what would you choose? Would you, for example, want to remain in great shape right up until the last minute and then go quickly? Many people say they would choose that option, but I see an important catch. If you are feeling fine one moment, the very last thing you would want is to drop dead the next. And for your loving family and friends, who would suffer instant bereavement, your sudden death would be a cruel loss. On the other hand, coping with a long, drawn-out terminal illness is not great either, nor is the nightmare of losing a loved one into the dark wastes of dementia.
We all prefer to avoid thinking about the end of life. Yet it is healthy to ask such questions, at least sometimes, for ourselves and to correctly define the goals of medical policy and research. It is also important to ask just how far science can help in efforts to cheat death.
WE'RE LIVING LONGER
IT IS OFTEN SAID that our ancestors had an easier relationship with death, if only because they saw it so much more often. Just 100 years ago life expectancy …show more content…
Out of the daily intake of energy, some might go to growth, some to physical work and movement, some to reproduction. Some energy, instead, might be stored as fat to protect against famine, but much gets burned just to fix the innumerable faults that arise every second the organism is alive. Another increment of these scarce resources goes to proofread the genetic code involved in the continual synthesis of new proteins and other essential molecules. And still another allocation powers the energy-hungry garbage disposal mechanisms that clear molecular debris out of the
As we grow old, our own cells begin to betray us. By unraveling the mysteries of aging, scientists may be able to make our lives longer and healthier
IF YOU WERE GIVEN a free hand to plan how your life will end--your last weeks, days, hours and minutes--what would you choose? Would you, for example, want to remain in great shape right up until the last minute and then go quickly? Many people say they would choose that option, but I see an important catch. If you are feeling fine one moment, the very last thing you would want is to drop dead the next. And for your loving family and friends, who would suffer instant bereavement, your sudden death would be a cruel loss. On the other hand, coping with a long, drawn-out terminal illness is not great either, nor is the nightmare of losing a loved one into the dark wastes of dementia.
We all prefer to avoid thinking about the end of life. Yet it is healthy to ask such questions, at least sometimes, for ourselves and to correctly define the goals of medical policy and research. It is also important to ask just how far science can help in efforts to cheat death.
WE'RE LIVING LONGER
IT IS OFTEN SAID that our ancestors had an easier relationship with death, if only because they saw it so much more often. Just 100 years ago life expectancy …show more content…
Out of the daily intake of energy, some might go to growth, some to physical work and movement, some to reproduction. Some energy, instead, might be stored as fat to protect against famine, but much gets burned just to fix the innumerable faults that arise every second the organism is alive. Another increment of these scarce resources goes to proofread the genetic code involved in the continual synthesis of new proteins and other essential molecules. And still another allocation powers the energy-hungry garbage disposal mechanisms that clear molecular debris out of the