Scientist: First Human to Live 1,000 Years Has Already Been Born
Posted on April 18, 2006
An article on MSNBC.com says some scientists no longer see a limit to how long a human being can live. One scientist at a recent meeting of Oxford scientists even said the first person to live to 1,000 has already been born.
"Life expectancy is going to grow significantly, and current policies are going to be proven totally inadequate," he predicted.It is very tough to get people to eat a low calorie diet in modern cities where there is an abundance of food to eat. Aubrey de Grey is probably correct that advanced gene therapy and stem cell techniques will be need to have people living healthy lives beyond 120.Just how far and fast life expectancy will increase is open to debate, but the direction and the accelerating trend is clear.
Richard Miller of the Michigan University Medical School said tests on mice and rats - genetically very similar to humans - showed life span could be extended by 40 percent, simply by limiting calorie consumption.
Translated into humans, that would mean average life expectancy in rich countries rising from near 80 to 112 years, with many individuals living a lot longer.
Aubrey de Grey, a biomedical gerontologist from Cambridge University, goes much further. He believes the first person to live to 1,000 has already been born and told the meeting that periodic repairs to the body using stem cells, gene therapy and other techniques could eventually stop the aging process entirely.
