Growing Old?

December 5, 2016

In his TED talk, “Undoing Aging,” Aubrey de Grey talks about aging as a problem that needs attention. He explains that the people he is representing are working on a medicine to reduce or eliminate the effects of aging. They are working on a medicine to repair cell damage that happens over time to everyone as we get older. This seems like it would be rather beneficial, assuming that this can actually be done with no negative side effects and no economical problems due to people living for a long time. However, there begs a question of whether it can be done without negative side effects either mentally, physically, or economically.

One advantage of slowing or eliminating the effects of aging as far as repairing cell damage would be the reduction or elimination of suffering that every human currently inevitably experiences as they age. While there are a very large number of diseases and health problems related to aging, some of the common ones include cardiovascular disease, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, Alzheimer’s/ dementia, and diabetes. The fact that almost everyone will suffer from some sort of pain, ailment, or disease that is directly related to old age before they pass away, does make the idea of significantly slowing the aging process pretty appealing.

Aging is not entirely bad, though, contrary to popular belief. An article from BBC.com explains all the benefits and good things that happen as we get older. From around age 40 to around age 70, our immune systems are more powerful than when we were young. Which means we will have an average of 30 years of older age, where we won’t get sick very often. Allergies also decline as one ages, so older people tend to not suffer from allergies as they would when they were younger. Wisdom and cleverness are also advantages to getting older, our brains continue to get smarter as we get older. A study in Seattle concluded that vocabulary, spatial orientation, verbal memory, and problem solving is better in the 50’s than in the 20’s. Older people also experience better sex, according to surveys. Researchers credit this to less self consciousness as we age. We sweat less as we get older, too (Gorvett, 2015).

One concern for this proposal has to do with money. It’s pretty likely that if they finished developing a medicine to reverse aging and significantly extend the length of a human life and put it on the market, it would cost a lot of money. This would leave anyone who isn’t wealthy to continue suffering while rich and elite folk go on living longer lives with no health problems. So, if this drug is developed, in order to be ethical, it would need to be made widely available and affordable, as should certain medications that are viewed as a necessity. Another big issue would be, are we toying with nature? Some people might view this as an unnatural thing. Not to say it wouldn’t have its benefits, it would just be going against the natural order of things. De Grey himself points out the importance of cell death, called apoptosis, or “programmed suicide,” which is old cells dying to be replaced by new, healthy ones. While he claims that they are going to be repairing cell damage, I think that cell death exists for a reason. Cancer is caused by cells not dying when they are supposed to, but humans are made entirely of cells, it is possible there could be something bad about humans not dying when we are supposed to.

Some disadvantages could be our economy, or our mental health. Living for too long might cause some psychological issues as well. He addresses the question, "where would we put everyone?" And also points out that we would definitely overpopulate the world eventually. It sounds a little cold to say, but there is not unlimited space and resources available to humans. A sudden boost in population and decline in deaths would be a disaster to our planet. Approximately 151,600 people die every day, while at the same time, 360,000 people are born each day. (EGN, 2016). That means the population increases by about 148,900 people each day. The world’s population is approximately 7.36 billion people (US Census Bureau, 2016). If we decreased the amount of deaths per day by half, then in just over a century, our world’s population will have doubled.

If these researchers do develop the anti-aging medicine, we can only hope that it is extensively clinically tested thoroughly before being marketed to the general public. There seems like a lot can go wrong when messing with the nature of human cells. A plan would also need to be developed to be able to economically support an even more rapid growth of our population than is already occurring. We do know, however, that many people all over the world would be overcome with gratitude if they were suddenly spared the suffering and diseases that come with getting older, so one can understand the appeal and why this idea is being studied in the first place.

References:

United States Census Bureau (Dec 9, 2016). US and World Population Clock. United

States Census Bureau, U.S. Department of Commerce. Retrieved from: www.census.gov/popclock/

Ecology Global Network (2016). World Birth and Death Rates. Ecology

Communications Group, Inc. Retrieved from: www.ecology.com/birth-death-rates/

Gorvett, Z. (2015, October 29). The benefits of getting older. The BBC. Retrieved from:

www.bbc.com/future/story/20151028-the-benefits-of-getting-older

TEDxTalks. (2013, April 21). Undoing aging: Aubrey de Grey at tedxdanubia 2013. YouTube. Retrieved July 17, 2022, from