Despite all progress on the medical front and health care, the ultimate human life span of 85 years has remained unchanged. What has changed is just life expectancy but not the ultimate life span.
But now genetic scientists are set to change the ultimate life span too. The recent completion of Human Genome Project has generated huge information which will eventually help the future scientists to tweak those genes which program our ageing pattern and would be able to extend our ultimate life span. The life span of Human species can be eventually raised from 600 years to 1200 years. This is not my view. This is the opinion of leading authorities in this field.
The interpretation of data of Human Genome Project itself will take at least one hundred years. Finding out which gene is responsible for which protien is not an easy task and requires lot of research and experiments. So finding out the functions and purposes of thirty thousand genes will obviously take about one hundred years. And then only true progress in this direction will be visible. It is predicted that by the next century, human life span would have been increased to 125 years. Of course, we all will not be alive to see these changes and progresses, but still I would like to know other reader’s mind. How increased life span would affect the future societies?
Re: Human Life Span can be jacked up to 600 to 1200 years
interesting. do u have more info on this? i would think that a longer lifespan would gradually change the structure of society....like the ages where people start to work for a living, get married, have kids?
Re: Human Life Span can be jacked up to 600 to 1200 years
I will search and send this article to you. I had read about it when President Clinton and Prime Minister Blair jointly announced the completion of final draft of Human Genome project in July 2000
Re: Human Life Span can be jacked up to 600 to 1200 years
sal35, although the Human Genome Project is very interesting and will yield very important scientific discoveries, I doubt it will lead to increasing the life-span to over 100 years even. Afew reasons for this:
life expectancy is more controlled by extreneous factors than through our genes. with the genome projects it seems as if the right mixture of genes will give you increasing years of life. That's not true. Most diseases that people die of today are unrelated directly to genes; moreover dementia, heart disease, etc are more likely environmental diseases with only a minor influence from genes.
it's been quite some years now that the human genome project has finished, and it has still yet to deliver any important change in clinical practice or public health. And i doubt whether it will directly influence the occurence of major diseases like diabetes, infarctions, dementia.
in the whole of known human history the single most important factor that led to the largest increase in life-expectancy (from 40 years to around 70) has been the introduction of public health and sanitary systems: e.g. sewers, toilets, clean drinking water, vaccinations etc. Apart from that, the other major discoveries have been of antibiotics, steroids, etc etc. I doubt whether any gene-related discovery will be found in the top 10 most important discoveries/inventions in human medicine. (perhaps the discovery of DNA itself, but even that was far less important than sewage and antibiotics)
Re: Human Life Span can be jacked up to 600 to 1200 years
[quote=“NeSCio”]
sal35, I doubt whether any gene-related discovery will be found in the top 10 most important discoveries/inventions in human medicine. (perhaps the discovery of DNA itself, but even that was far less important than sewage and antibiotics)/QUOTE
Discovering the gene for Insulin and mass producing Human Insulin through DNA Recombinant Technology in 1982 or 1984 (I don’t remember the exact year) was one of the major achievement. Now diabetics all over the world use Human Insulin rather than the previously used, highly allergic animal product.
Re: Human Life Span can be jacked up to 600 to 1200 years
^although very important indeed, I don't think it rates up there with the ones I already mentioned. Because insulin is used by diabetics type 1 (<5% of all diabetes) and close to end-stage diabetics (who wudn't have a very long life-expectancy anyway).
Therefore, I wonder how many lives it effective saved vs the old insulin.
I still reckon a few others higher than the insulin:
Re: Human Life Span can be jacked up to 600 to 1200 years
I agree with you that genetic science hasn’t made large scale impact yet since it’s a new science. DNA structure was discovered only in 1950s and DNA code was understood only in 1960s and DNA recombinant technology (gene transfer) was developed only in late 1970s and its first application was in the mass production of Human Insulin in the early 80s. Human Genome has been deciphered just recently. So obviously, genetic science application will take lot of time to make impact in common man’s lives. But it holds a large promise.
Yes life expectancy improved from 40 years to 70 years because of the progress on various fronts but the ulimate natural life span of human species has never been altered. It’s approximately 85 years for an average human being provided he or she follows proper life style. My father lived for 57 years because he didn’t follow healthy life style and died when his own father (My grand father) was alive at 80 years. His smoking habit led to Cancer and premature death. So environment do have an impact on life expectancy. But I am talking of ultimate life span of human species which is programmed at 85 years. I am saying that genetic technology can alther this by slowing the ageing process. When genes responsible for ageing process are identified then ageing process can be slowed down and this would lengthen the human life span. But again life style habits and environmental factors will certainly have more impact on life expectancy.
Re: Human Life Span can be jacked up to 600 to 1200 years
Good question…
Let me explain you first the meaning of Life Expectancy. In Canada, life expectancy for a new born male baby is 77 years while that in India, it’s 66 years and in Pakistan it’s even less. This means that a male baby born in Canada can expect to live for 77 years. In Canada, life expectancy for a new born female baby is 82.1 years. The life expectancy of a male adult of 40 years age in Canada is about 39 years. So a 40 years old man can expect to live for another 39 years. The life expectancy is different in different countries and depends on the level of health care, national dietary habits etc.
The life span refers to the average life of a particular species. The natural life span of human species is considered to be 85 years. We undergo various changes during our life cycle like adolescence, puberty to name a few and these changes are genetically predetermined. So our ageing pattern is genetically preprogrammed. So far all the advances in medical science or health care hasn’t altered this pattern. But new developements give hope in this direction.
How nice it would be if you remain a child till you turn 40 years old and enjoy all the love and care from your parents:). Don’t you feel like singing …
Happy Birth Day To You
Hum Bhi Agar Bache Hote
Naam Hamaaraa Hota Bablu, Pablu
Khaane Ko Milte Laddu
Aur Duniya Kahti “Happy Birth Day To You”
Want to listen the above song!!! Then here is the link below
Re: Human Life Span can be jacked up to 600 to 1200 years
Another view is: There is a secret clock in our DNA that tells when to reduce/stop making new cells and go into old age.
If we can just change the clock - then we will be young and pretty all the time :)
Re: Human Life Span can be jacked up to 600 to 1200 years
I thought aging happened becasue the replica of new cells was imprefect, i.e when our cells reproduce and so on, they are incapable of producing PERFECT copies and thus aging begins.
Re: Human Life Span can be jacked up to 600 to 1200 years
May be you are right to some extent. Current research findings too suggest this. One analogy to support this, is photocopying. When you photocopy an original document then repeated copying leads to deterioration (Of course digital copying never causes such deterioration).
But my question is that some of the cells like brain cells never divide and so never reproduce daughter cells, so why they age.
Re: Human Life Span can be jacked up to 600 to 1200 years
There are reasearchers who believe life span can be extended by low calorie diet, as some animal experiment showed, but to prove that on human will require many decades...
i wonder why in the first place would human want to increase life span, i mean the most enjoyable would be to etend youth age, not life span...living half life (ie 60 years) with grey hair, wrinkles and arthritis, is not my idea of fun...i'd die and skip that that other half...hence the point of extending life span appear useless to me...but that is maybe another topic
Re: Human Life Span can be jacked up to 600 to 1200 years
as far as I know (= AFAIK) as the "time clock" triggers the old age - the reproduction of new cell is slowed.
These are ofcourse very simple view of quite a complex body. Over Simplifying always move it further from Truth :)