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By Devon Frye<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Getting old, as they say, beats the alternative. And it certainly has its perks: wisdom, retirement, the joy of watching grandchildren grow. But aging also brings frailty, disease, and cognitive decline that\u2019s mild at best, incapacitating at worst. Aging\u2019s burdens are massive, but long considered inevitable\u2014an inescapable debt owed for being alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But is aging truly unavoidable? Biologist Andrew Steele doesn\u2019t think so. In his book Ageless: The New Science of Getting Older Without Getting Old, Steele explores the burgeoning field of biogerontology, spotlighting emerging treatments\u2014from drugs that clear out aged cells to gene therapy that fixes damaged DNA. Such interventions could, he argues, end aging as we know it within a few decades, allowing us to live longer without a stark decline in health. But though he believes that treating aging as a disease to be cured could both extend and improve billions of lives, he\u2019s gotten plenty of pushback. Steele talked to PT about why the idea of \u201ccuring\u201d aging is hard to digest\u2014and what might happen if efforts to do so are successful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
People often respond with discomfort to the idea of ending aging. Why?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n For most of us, the idea of stopping aging is unimaginable. As long as there have been humans, there’s been aging. It\u2019s wired into our brains, innately or socially, to accept that\u2014and to think it\u2019s a bit weird to want to do something about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Do people tend to be optimistic or pessimistic about aging?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n When it comes to aging, we tend to have both an optimism bias in our personal lives and a pessimism bias about the world at large. In one seminal study where students were asked to forecast their future, for example, few predicted that things like cancer or heart attacks would happen to them when they were older\u2014even though there is a big chance of them occurring. But on a larger scale, people [in wealthy countries] tend to massively underestimate things like worldwide life expectancy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If a \u201ccure\u201d for aging materialized, how might it affect psychological health?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n People can get depressed when they get old. If you\u2019re unable to play with your grandkids or even leave your house, that narrows your horizons and makes everything more depressing. Reversing the physical aspects of aging means those psychological challenges might be reversed, too. And Alzheimer\u2019s is starkly a disease of aging. It\u2019s almost unheard of before age 60, but after that, risk doubles every five years. We can\u2019t pinpoint its exact cause at the moment. But it\u2019s likely that if we target the underlying causes of aging, we could, at the least, delay the onset of this terrible disease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What treatment do you see as being next on the horizon?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The most exciting idea in development is \u201csenolytic\u201d drugs that remove aged, senescent cells from our bodies. Scientists have shown that destroying these cells in mice basically makes them biologically younger\u2014they live longer and do so in better health. From a cognitive standpoint, there are also hints of improvement: Older mice given these drugs seem to be more curious, like their younger counterparts. Human trials have already begun\u2014and if they work, it might be only a few years before they’re approved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What is your perspective on aging well now?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Understanding the biology of aging creates a new respect for basic bits of health advice. Eating well, exercising, not smoking\u2014these all essentially slow down the aging process, and they\u2019re good for your mind as well as your body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Originally published at Psychology Today<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Devon Frye Getting old, as they say, beats the alternative. And it certainly has its perks: wisdom, retirement, the joy of watching grandchildren grow. But aging also brings frailty, disease, and cognitive decline that\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5179,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[1629,1630],"class_list":["post-5178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","tag-aging","tag-getting-old"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n