Keywords: Life extension, immortality, anti-aging, pseudo-science
Title: The Quest for Immortality
Authors: S. Jay Olshanky and Bruce A. Carnes
Publisher: WW Norton
Media: Book
Reviewer: Pan
Judging by the number of spam emails that regularly clutter the BlackStarReview inbox, the secrets of reversing aging have been finally been cracked. We can live longer, look younger and feel great for ever - at a price, of course. In an age where youth - and 'youth' culture - is everything, nobody wants to grow old.
The Quest for Immortality is a welcome and readable antidote to the hype of the anti-aging industry. The aim is simple, to shed some light on what is a complex topic that many would like to garb in scientific language in the hope that we can be persuaded to part with cash to buy the latest drug/therapy/book. The authors, both active researchers in the area of aging, do a masterful job of explaining the physical and social processes that are involved.
In analysing the rise in average life-expectancy in the developed world, a rise that is unprecedented in human history, many of the fallacies of the anti-aging hucksters is revealed. The rise in average life-expectancy is in large part due to a redistribution of death from the young to the old. In other words because infant mortality has been reduced, more children survive to old age, therefore the average life-expectancy rises. Add to this the concept of manufactured time, which the authors define as the extra years of life that surgical and medical procedures give to us, and the figures for average life-expectancy make more sense. Rather than suggesting that life-expectancy can continue to rise indefinitely, as is suggested by some peddlers of life extension, it appears that the rapid rate of increase is reaching a plateau.
Note also that the keys to this increase in life-expectancy are simple: clean water, sanitation, improved diet and access to adequate health care. Not expensive drugs, miracle elixirs or the power of prayer and positive thinking. These are relatively simple measures, but large swathes of the world's population are still without these basic amenities.
In another illuminating section of the book the authors look at the evolutionary biology related to aging and the diseases of the elderly - cancer, heart disease, late onset diabetes etc. Why do these diseases exist? Why are they more prevalent in the elderly? Part of the answer is that the elderly have already done their bit for the propagation of the species. Genetic diseases that predominantly hit the young would tend to die out because their victims would not reproduce and pass on the genes to their children.
Of course there are questions that arise from all of this. What do successful treatments of genetic disorders do to the gene pool? Do we really want to live longer, or would we prefer to live healthier in the years we've got? Is there a biological limit to human aging?
There is more to this book than debunking the modern (and not so modern) myths of the anti-aging gurus. It provides a fascinating account of the factors at play in aging, and it provokes, inevitably the kind of moral questions that the proponents of life extension prefer to ignore. It's the best antidote to the age extension hype you could hope to find.
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