While I agree that scientific breakthroughs could enable people to live 20% longer than the old “threescore and ten”, i.e. 90 or maybe a bit beyond, as this article at Seeker suggests:
Austad and others are currently looking for 70 candidates for the first five-year trial. Metformin effects three metabolic pathways in the body responsible for aging. Diabetic patients who took the drug lived longer than healthy patients who did not, according to Austad. Because its already been approved for use by federal officials, Austad and his team won’t have to go through lengthy pre-clinical tests for safety.
At the same time, other researchers are working on several other strategies to combat aging. Another drug is rapamycin, which inhibits cellular processes during cell metabolism.
“When you give it to a variety of animals, they all live longer and healthier,” said Nir Barzilai, professor of medicine and genetics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
“If we give mice a combination of rapamycin and metformin, their lifespan is increased 25 percent,” Barzilai said. “For humans it’s a lifespan of 100 years instead of 75 years. This is the most promising approach.”
However, I’m skeptical that extending the human lifespan beyond around 115 will ever prove practical. Of the 7 billion some-odd human beings wreaking havoc on the world today, only a handful have reached 115 or beyond and those who’ve lived that long aren’t wreaking a great deal of havoc any more.
You’d think that if it were even possible for a human to live to, say, there would be at least one. That there isn’t suggests to me there’s actually a limit to the length of human life that science will not be able to extend.
Extending functional life should be more of a priority, especially limiting cognitive decline.
Steve