A pill for old age: what are the prospects of immortality for humans

The network is spreading reports that scientists have found another "pill" for aging, which will allow us to live for a very long time, and maybe even become almost immortal. And numerous clinics will willingly sell such "pills" to anyone who is willing to pay well for them and very expensive tests that need to be done in advance. Writes about it Hromadske.

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The journalists talked about the imaginary and real achievements of science in the fight against aging with a pathophysiologist, Doctor of Medical Sciences, Head of the Department of General and Molecular Pathophysiology of the Institute of Physiology named after A. O. Bogomolets of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Viktor Dosenko.

Aging is a disease

There are two main points of view on the nature of aging. According to the first, aging is a pathological process, that is, a disease. And according to the second, this is a normal physiological process. Viktor Dosenko considers the second position to be more justified and is its supporter.

“Evolution has maintained a mechanism for breeding out of a population individuals who have lived a certain number of years,” he explains.

From an individual's point of view, death is partly a tragedy and a sad prospect. This is good for the population, otherwise evolution would not support such a mechanism.

Naked mole rat

This animal, unique among mammals, is characterized by “elusive aging.” This means that as these pets age, their likelihood of dying from a particular disease does not increase. But with people it’s the other way around: people don’t die “of old age” - no matter how many years they lived and how they felt on the eve of death.

However, you should not envy naked mole rats. Their uniqueness most likely indicates that they went a special way, but it certainly does not lead them to the conditional summit of evolution.

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“Diggers settled narrowly in Central Africa. If scientists had not become interested in them and started breeding them in captivity, it is possible that this species would soon have disappeared from the face of the Earth. Excavators are very different from mortal rats and mice, which occupy any ecological niches,” says Viktor Dosenko.

From the point of view of science, these animals are certainly interesting, so scientists have been studying their organisms for a long time. But so far, these studies do not give people the opportunity to apply their experience for their own immortality.

More achievable from the point of view of modern science is the continuation of the aging process, or, one might say, its "management". Moreover, the specific recipes are almost exactly known. But you may not like them.

Such unattainable aging

Aging and diseases associated with it, which ultimately lead to death, were of little interest to practical medicine and science until the end of the century before last. People of different social strata many times risked dying young or early in life: wars, hunger, massive infectious diseases, and the like.

But scientific and technological progress at the end of the 19th century led to the fact that mankind began to more often bypass dangers during youth and live to old age. Then they thought: why not live even longer than nature foresaw?

That’s when scientists turned their attention to diseases associated with aging: strokes, heart attacks, emphysema, etc. In order not to treat them separately, they decided to tackle their cause - aging. However, it was necessary to recognize this process as pathological, that is, abnormal.

Mechnikov and the inner world of man

Our compatriot Ilya Mechnikov was one of the first to study the mechanisms of aging. He argued that macrophages are the cause of aging. These are normal immune cells that "eat" the debris of other dead cells, or pathogenic microbes that have entered the body. But over time, as Metchnikov believed, they become more active and begin to attack the cells of the human body, which leads to aging. To slow down the process, you need to curb the macrophages.

According to Mechnikov, this can be done by acting on the intestinal microflora. It is for this purpose that he popularized Bulgarian yoghurt, which contains certain beneficial bacteria.

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“The then knowledge about the intestinal microbiome and its role is not comparable with modern ones, but despite this, Mechnikov’s idea turned out to be surprisingly successful and was ahead of its time. Modern research suggests that during the aging process, the intestinal microflora actually changes in such a way that inflammatory processes in the body intensify. And macrophages are really involved here,” says Victor Dosenko.

Eating fermented milk products is a good practice, but they will not help significantly prolong your life.

Praying mantis and its serum

The next important step in the study of aging processes was taken by another of our compatriots, Alexander Bogomolets. He was one of the first to study the work of connective tissue and came to the conclusion that it plays an important role in the aging process - before, connective tissue was not seriously interested in, because its role in the body was considered secondary. After a series of studies, the modern Institute of Physiology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine was created, named after Alexander Bogomolets.

Thanks to his work, the world's first antibody preparation was also created in the 1930s - Bogomolets serum, or antireticular cytotoxic serum (ARC).

To prepare it, you need a human spleen. This organ is removed by surgeons in case of injury - the person continues to live normally without it. A preparation containing connective tissue proteins is prepared from it, and it is injected into the horse’s body several times. In response, the animal's body produces antibodies against human connective tissue. It is necessary to take some blood from the horse and isolate from it a fraction containing many of these antibodies. This is the Bogomolets serum.

“The creation of this drug was an event at the level of the first flight into space,” says Viktor Dosenko.

In small doses, serum causes slight damage to the connective tissue and thus stimulates its work. The drug began to treat various complex diseases, including cardiovascular, oncological and various immunodeficiency states. Numerous then studies of the drug on laboratory animals, which were carried out at the Institute of Physiology, showed that it increases their lifespan.

“There are publications and scientific reports signed by prominent doctors of the time, indicating that the serum worked,” says Victor Dosenko. But by modern standards, the effectiveness of the drug has not been studied.

Until the 90s of the last century, the drug was produced in Kyiv for the needs of the Soviet Union. It was also produced under license in France - this was virtually an unprecedented case in the history of the Soviet pharmaceutical industry.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Bogomolets' serum was discontinued. This, in particular, was facilitated by the AIDS epidemic: after all, human tissues were used for the production of the drug, and this had a potential risk of contracting an then incurable disease.

Why "anti-aging pills" can't be tested in humans

Bogomolets' serum does indeed prolong the life of animals - but what about people? To do this, you first need to conduct clinical studies to make sure that this is possible. After all, drugs that were effective on animals may not work.

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Since people live much longer than laboratory animals, it is almost impossible to conduct such studies according to all the rules to obtain statistically reliable results. Such an experiment should last for decades and involve thousands of participants. In addition, the researcher - very likely - may die earlier than the participants in such a study.

“Science has not yet come up with a method for testing anti-aging drugs in humans,” says Viktor Dosenko.

In addition to Bogomolets serum, there are other substances that definitely prolong life - this has been proven in animal experiments. But they have not been tested in humans for the same reasons.

SMS from zombie cells

One of the most promising currently anti-aging methods, according to Viktor Dosenko, is associated with the control of senescent cells. They learned about them at the beginning of this century. They can be found in any part of the human body, they are immortal, they do not divide - but they cause other cells to age.

To do this, they send them SMS (senescence-messaging secretome) - molecular “messages” that they need to grow old. And cells really age after such SMS messages. These cells are also called zombie cells or senescent cells. They are present in the human body at any age, but over the years they become more and more numerous.

An idea arises: if you somehow reduce the number of such cells, then aging should slow down. Indeed, today there is a class of drugs called senolyticams - they kill zombie cells. In experiments on mice, they prolong the life of animals by more than 30%.

“Among them there are those that have proven their effectiveness in humans. One of the drugs, in particular, made it possible within eight months not only to slow down the aging of human skin, but also to rejuvenate it,” says Viktor Dosenko.

Rejuvenation is not for everyone

And here again everything is not easy. Senescent cells not only participate in one of the mechanisms of aging, but also perform other important physiological functions. In particular, they ensure tissue homeostasis (the so-called state of environmental equilibrium, which is important for life processes). If there are no senescent cells in the body, or fewer than needed, it will not work correctly.

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Victor Dosenko claims that senolytics can be used for the same skin rejuvenation, but not everyone can resort to this method. First, using special research methods, it is necessary to determine how many of these cells are contained in the skin of a particular patient. If there is a lot, you can reduce it. If the amount is normal, then rejuvenating young skin will be not only unnecessary, but also harmful.

Among senolytics, there are drugs approved for the treatment of specific diseases, and none of them are yet considered anti-aging drugs. Even if they are really capable of this, it is extremely difficult to obtain confirmation from evidence-based medicine.

Eat less

There is another method to extend life, the effectiveness of which has been well proven in animals, in particular in monkeys. It does not require special drugs or technologies - it refers to reducing the number of calories a person consumes.

It will likely work as well on humans as it does on other animals. However, for many (and even more so for hedonists who prefer to eat anything), it will not work.

However, anyone can try this method at their own discretion. However, you never know for sure whether he really added a few years to his life. And do not forget about quality: if wine and tasty and hearty food are important for a person, will she want to live until she is 120 years old, but without such dear pleasures for her?

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