The cure for death. Live long and happy. Why you feel sick while eating: find out together

IS THERE A DEATH CURE?

Old age is a disease, and curing it is the task of a bioengineer, says Doctor of Biological Sciences, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Director of the Institute of Physical and Chemical Biology. A.N. Belozersky, Dean of the Faculty of Bioengineering and Bioinformatics, Lomonosov Moscow State University. M.V. Lomonosov Vladimir Petrovich Skulachev. Since 2003, he has been working on the creation of a "cure for old age." IS THERE A DEATH CURE? What is aging and death? There are two opposite points of view on aging and the death it causes. Before Darwin, it was believed that final stage human development: birth in the womb, birth, growth, old age - and, finally, death. With the advent of Darwin's theory began to think that natural selection individuals cannot lead to such strange and bad phenomena as aging and, moreover, death from old age, and that we age for technical reasons: complex organism gradually wears out and breaks. The famous German biologist August Weismann was the first to rebel against this point of view. late XIX century, he delivered a sensational lecture that aging and death from aging arose in the process of evolution, firstly, to destroy weakened individuals and, secondly, to accelerate the change of generations and, accordingly, evolution. Unfortunately, this hypothesis does not explain the most important feature of aging - a slow pace: a person fades away for many years, which, in general, is not very effective. And it is completely incomprehensible why a coordinated weakening of many functions occurs during aging, because the body dies, even if only one function fails, for example, the heart stops beating. The point of view of the "vulgar Darwinists" I call pessimistic: if it is correct, nothing will do with aging, and gerontology is only a descriptive science that studies the way to the cemetery. And I consider Weismann's theory optimistic: if it is written in the genes that you first need to be born, then grow up, stop growing and begin to age, then this program can be intervened and slowed down or even canceled. Which of these theories prevails now? Until the end of the 20th century, the Darwinian point of view dominated science. Even now, traditional gerontology is still pessimistic, but the Weismann hypothesis is shared by more and more scientists, because there is not a single argument that would definitively refute it. In addition, in the second half of the last century, an event occurred that dramatically changed the balance between these points of view - the phenomenon of programmed death of a living cell was found (this phenomenon, called "apoptosis", certainly arose in the course of evolution). It turned out that in every cell there are genes in which its suicide is programmed. Moreover, it turned out that the cell is a terrible pessimist: it is always ready to commit suicide, and in order for it to live, it must be pushed to this by a special protein. Scientists who discovered the genes for the apoptosis program in the nematode worm received the Nobel Prize in 2003. Do organisms have programmed death? When scientists learned about cell suicide, they speculated that there might be an organism's suicide program as well. And they turned out to be right: unicellular organisms, for example, bacteria and yeast, have it. Here's what happens to yeast: in order to attract a cell of the opposite sex, they (like people) secrete special substances - pheromones, which not only attract, but also kill the yeast of the opposite sex if the concentration of the pheromone rises. Some time ago, it turned out that mammals have the same program: for example, male marsupial mice living in Australia die ten days after the end of the rut from their own pheromones. And quite recently an outstanding discovery was made in Belgium. They studied a herb called Arabidopsis (in Russian - rezushka), which lives for two and a half months: its seeds emit a substance of an unknown nature, which kills the rezushka in just ten days. There are approximately 35,000 genes in the cress genome, of which only two are responsible for sexual reproduction, that is, for flowering. When these two genes were removed, the cress became immortal - it turned into a bush, acquired a thick stem, grew large leaves and began to reproduce vegetatively, by rhizome, and not sexually. This means that the cress has a backup program, apparently an older one: just as ferns and horsetails were once trees, the cress was a bush, and then became a small grass and started sexual reproduction. In this example, we see how death arose. By the way, this echoes the religious dogmas that Adam was immortal until he met Eve and until sexual reproduction began. At what age does human aging begin and how does it manifest itself? IS THERE A DEATH CURE? First of all, at the age of 15, begins to age the immune system. At 20, it is already certainly weaker than at 10. This explains why adolescents are less likely to die from infectious diseases than adults and especially old people. Then getting old muscular system: A 30-year-old footballer costs less than a 20-year-old. In humans, the number of muscle fibers decreases - this phenomenon is called sarcopenia. Then the eyes begin to age: visual acuity worsens from the age of 30. Then comes the skin - typical senile signs appear on the skin at the age of 40. Further, at the age of 50-60, menopause occurs in women, that is, they age reproductive system(in men, it can act almost up to a hundred years). The brain seems to age the last, at a very advanced age, and it's different for everyone. I have a family I know, who in the difficult years after the collapse of the USSR were fed by an almost 100-year-old grandfather - he prepared schoolchildren for entering the university. Grandfather no longer recognized his relatives, he could not serve himself, but when students came to him, he worked with them perfectly. The function of the brain, which he trained all his life, remained impeccable. It is generally known that if a person stops exercising mental activity, his abilities are degrading. By the way, the fact that the human body does not age synchronously: something breaks down at 15, something at 95, is not at all explained by pessimistic gerontologists. Some animals have “cancelled” their aging program. How and why did they do it? The aging program is canceled by organisms that have no enemies, so they have nowhere to evolve. Aesop once said: the hare will always run away from the fox, because for him it is a matter of life and death, and for the fox it is a matter of dinner. But this is true only for young hares. Now consider old hares: suppose one of them is smart, the other is stupid, but both can still produce offspring. If they see a fox, the smart one will run away, and the stupid one will stop to look at it - and the fox will eat him. Smart will survive and spawn smart rabbits. Aging is a way to speed up evolution. And if there are no foxes, then hares do not need aging. Therefore, such creatures as, for example, a giant tortoise (it is protected by a shell), a giant whale, a river pearl mussel (none of the river inhabitants can gnaw through the valves of this mollusk) do not age. Most ageless organisms are constantly growing and become more fertile with age. The pearl oyster, for example, grows throughout life, and at some point muscle leg , on which she rests, ceases to withstand the weight of the shell - and she falls, and then dies of hunger. Similarly, the giant tortoise dies because it cannot bear the weight of its shell. Another ageless animal is the naked mole rat, a rodent that lives underground in colonies of 200-250 individuals. He lives up to 30 years, and with age, the probability of death does not increase with him. How and why he ¬dies - no one knows: he has no cancer, no stroke, no diabetes, no other fatal diseases, his immune system does not age. Similarly, no one knows why giant whales die. Man also has no enemies but himself. Why don't we cancel this program for ourselves? We've got rid of our enemies too recently. For something to change, about 100 thousand years must pass. But I think we are getting there. How did you come up with the idea to create a cure for aging? Any student of my faculty knows how to stop the chain of events that trigger the death of a cell. Why not then create a substance that will stop the aging of the human body?! Of course, it would be ideal to find the genes responsible for death in a person and “knock out” them. But so far there is no talk of such a level of work. What is the basis of the action of your substance and what results can we talk about today? We created it with a very simple logic: a person seems to be slowly being poisoned by some kind of poison. The best candidate for this role is reactive oxygen species. Nature itself figured out how to deal with them by creating antioxidants: for example, vitamins E, C, which we get from food, coenzyme Q. Our substance also includes an antioxidant - we borrowed it from plants: they themselves form oxygen and so they learned to fight it well. Its second part is a cation, which is called the "Skulachev ion" (this term was coined by the American biochemist David Green). Working on our substance, we started from the discovery that Efim Arsenievich Lieberman and I made back in 1969. We have established that mitochondria (special organelles that are inside the cell) are power plants that convert chemical energy into electrical energy, and that the difference in electrical potentials on their membrane has a minus sign inside the mitochondria. As you know, plus tends to minus, and positively charged Skulachev ions, due to some of their features, freely pass through the mitochondrial membrane and deliver the antioxidant attached to them. IS THERE A DEATH CURE? Experiments have shown that our substance prolongs life different organisms- from fungi to mammals. For example, mice began to live twice as long. They lost or slowed down more than 30 signs of aging, menopause disappeared, immunity strengthened, they stopped suffering from infections. They died, as a rule, from cancer: unfortunately, our substance has no effect on this disease. ¬The best results we have achieved on a very interesting creature, a mole vole, which, apparently, does not have a cancer program. And experiments on Drosophila have shown that it is not necessary to take this medicine all your life - only the first 10 days are enough. However, if you start taking it in old age and do not cancel it until the end of your life, the effect will be the same. This is very important - it means that not everything is hopeless for the elderly: they can also be treated for old age. Soon, I think, our substance will be sold in pharmacies as a cure for eye diseases. We already have an official certificate that it - the first in the world! - radically cures a disease called "dry eye". We conducted experiments on people in Moscow eye hospitals, and in three weeks 60% of patients got rid of this terrible disease considered incurable. Now we are putting on a longer experience, and I think the result should be even better. In addition, animal experiments have shown that this medicine treats glaucoma, cataracts (incredibly, but it disappears - I cured my cataract myself), uveitis, macular degeneration. And, importantly, you need very little of it. To cure the eyes of all domestic cats, dogs and horses in Russia, 4 g of the substance is needed per year. Intake of conventional antioxidants in the current dosage form does not give the desired result? Unfortunately no. The first defect of conventional antioxidants, such as vitamin E, is that they do not work properly. Poisonous forms of oxygen are formed in the inner membrane of the mitochondria, while antioxidants penetrate all membranes. Therefore, they must be taken large quantities- and hence the second, more terrible defect of antioxidants: special system in the liver destroys them and turns them into carcinogens. We cannot eat vitamin E with spoons. The colossal advantage of our substance is that it goes inside the mitochondria, and you need to take it, as I said, in a nanoquantity. Ridding a person of old age and prolonging his life, you go against nature and evolution. Won't this lead to catastrophic consequences? My favorite saying is that when we want to take off, we build a plane, we don't wait for wings to grow behind us. Evolution is an adaptation to the environment, and we ourselves create this environment. We are cold - we dress warmer or turn on the heater, and the beast must grow its skin. We even extended our brains with the help of a computer. We don't need evolution. Perhaps in a million years our activities will provoke something negative, but I think by then we will either blow ourselves up or learn to cope with new problems. A person gets smarter very quickly: I remember, quite recently, at the end of the past century, it was believed that genes would be read at the end of the 21st century, and geneticists read them in the first decade. Won't you create additional problems: overpopulation, food shortages, competition for jobs? The land is empty - if you fly to the Far East, hundreds of kilometers of uninhabited land are visible. In addition, you can go the same way as the Chinese: to limit the birth rate. Here is such an alternative: live happily ever after, without diseases and die for some reason. random reasons, but then limit the birth rate - or die of old age. This is a social question, and its solution depends on the rationality of the social order. After all, when antibiotics were invented, people also began to live longer, their number increased, but there were no problems associated with this. How will people die if aging is abolished? Even now, in a civilized society, every tenth death is not related to old age - it is either suicide, or an infection, or a car accident, or the result of an injury. So when a person gets tired of living, he can commit suicide. In addition, when we live much longer, real senile diseases will appear - not programmed, like the current ones, but real ones. Some defects will appear, which for modern man insignificant because he doesn't live that long. best example are whales. Over the years, more and more L-amino acids spontaneously convert into D-amino acids in the proteins of the lens of their eyes, and by the age of two hundred whales, apparently, because of this, go blind. If they had lived less, this would not have happened. Here is a real senile disease, and our medicine will not help in any way from it. That is, new diseases will arise or rare old ones will develop, for which a person is not ready. And they will lead to death? So we're not talking about immortality? In relation to man, it will probably be possible to speak even of immortality. Unlike whales, we can replace our lens. Are there natural ways prolongation of youth? You can prolong youth with the help of fasting - they lengthen the life of everyone, even yeast: if they are limited in nutrition, they live longer. America has 20 years go by interesting experience on macaques (they live 35-40 years), which already shows that if macaques get 40% fewer calories per day, their aging program slows down and many of the signs of aging simply do not develop. I think the religious dogma about fasting is a subtle observation about how to live longer. Constant hunger certainly shortens life, and periods of food restriction, on the contrary, prolong. Another way, apparently, is regular and persistent physical training. While this is far less researched, less effective than food restriction, and less radical way. Amazing Property aging program is that you can try to slow it down at any time. That is, it is never too late to start playing sports, as well as to start fasting. On the last Olympic Games for the seniors, about 20 gold medals went to a 90-odd Canadian who only started training at the age of 70 when she retired.

What is aging and death?

There are two opposite points of view on aging and the death it causes. Before Darwin, it was believed that this is the last stage of human development: conception in the womb, birth, growth, old age - and, finally, death. With the advent of Darwin's theory, they began to think that the natural selection of individuals cannot lead to such strange and bad phenomena as aging and, moreover, death from old age, and that we age for technical reasons: a complex organism gradually wears out and breaks down. The famous German biologist August Weismann was the first to rebel against this point of view - at the end of the 19th century he gave a sensational lecture that aging and death from aging arose in the process of evolution, firstly, to destroy weakened individuals and, secondly, accelerate the change of generations and, accordingly, evolution. Unfortunately, this hypothesis does not explain the most important feature of aging - a slow pace: a person fades away for many years, which, in general, is not very effective. And it is completely incomprehensible why a coordinated weakening of many functions occurs during aging, because the body dies, even if only one function fails, for example, the heart stops beating.

I call the point of view of the “vulgar Darwinists” pessimistic: if it is correct, it will do nothing with aging, and gerontology is just a descriptive science that studies the way to the cemetery. And I consider Weismann's theory optimistic: if it is written in the genes that you first need to be born, then grow up, stop growing and begin to age, then this program can be interfered with and slowed down or even canceled.

Which of these theories prevails now?

Until the end of the 20th century, the Darwinian point of view dominated science. Yes, and now traditional gerontology is still pessimistic, but the Weismann hypothesis is shared by more and more scientists, because there is not a single argument that would definitively refute it. In addition, in the second half of the last century, an event occurred that dramatically changed the balance between these points of view - the phenomenon of programmed death of a living cell was found (this phenomenon, called "apoptosis", certainly arose in the course of evolution). It turned out that in every cell there are genes in which its suicide is programmed. Moreover, it turned out that the cell is a terrible pessimist: it is always ready to commit suicide, and in order for it to live, it must be pushed to this by a special protein. Scientists who discovered the genes for the apoptosis program in the nematode worm received the Nobel Prize in 2003.

Do organisms have programmed death?

When scientists learned about cell suicide, they speculated that there might be an organism's suicide program. And they turned out to be right: unicellular organisms, such as bacteria and yeast, have it. Here's what happens to yeast: in order to attract a cell of the opposite sex, they (like people) secrete special substances - pheromones, which not only attract, but also kill the yeast of the opposite sex if the concentration of the pheromone rises. Some time ago, it turned out that mammals have the same program: for example, male marsupial mice living in Australia die ten days after the end of the rut from their own pheromones. More recently, an outstanding discovery has been made in Belgium. They studied a herb called Arabidopsis (in Russian - rezushka), which lives for two and a half months: its seeds emit a substance of an unknown nature, which kills the rezushka in just ten days. There are approximately 35,000 genes in the cress genome, of which only two are responsible for sexual reproduction, that is, for flowering. When these two genes were removed, the cress became immortal - it turned into a bush, acquired a thick stem, grew large leaves and began to reproduce vegetatively, by rhizome, and not sexually. This means that the cress has a backup program, apparently an older one: just as ferns and horsetails were once trees, the cress was a bush, apot became a small grass and destroyed its sexual reproduction. In this example, we see how death arose. By the way, this echoes the religious dogmas that Adam was immortal until he met Eve and until sexual reproduction began.

At what age does human aging begin and how does it manifest itself?

First of all, at the age of 15, the immune system begins to age. At 20, it is already certainly weaker than at 10. This explains why adolescents are less likely to die from infectious diseases than adults and especially old people. Then the muscular system ages: a 30-year-old footballer costs less than a 20-year-old. In humans, the number of muscle fibers decreases - this phenomenon is called sarcopenia. Then the eyes begin to age: visual acuity worsens from the age of 30. Then comes the skin - typical senile signs on the skin appear at the age of 40. Further, at the age of 50-60, menopause occurs in women, that is, the reproductive system ages (in men, it can act almost up to a hundred years). The brain seems to age the last, at a very advanced age, and it's different for everyone.

I have a family friend who, in the difficult years after the collapse of the USSR, was fed by an almost 100-year-old grandfather - he prepared schoolchildren for entering the university. Grandfather no longer recognized his relatives, he could not serve himself, but when students came to him, he worked with them perfectly. The function of the brain, which he trained all his life, remained impeccable. It is generally known that if a person ceases to engage in mental activity, his abilities degrade. By the way, the fact that the human body does not age synchronously: something breaks down at 15, something at 95, is not at all explained by pessimistic gerontologists.

Some animals have “cancelled” their aging program. How and why did they do it?

The aging program is canceled by organisms that have no enemies, so they have nowhere to evolve. Aesop once said: the hare will always run away from the fox, because for him it is a matter of life and death, and for the fox it is a matter of dinner. But this is true only for young hares. Now consider old hares: suppose one of them is smart, the other is stupid, but both can still produce offspring. If they see a fox, the smart one will run away, and the stupid one will stop to look at it - and the fox will eat him. Smart will survive and spawn smart rabbits. Aging is a way to speed up evolution. And if there are no foxes, then hares do not need aging. Therefore, such creatures as, for example, a giant tortoise (it is protected by a shell), a giant whale, a river pearl mussel (none of the river inhabitants can gnaw through the valves of this mollusk) do not grow old. Most ageless organisms are constantly growing and become more fertile with age. A pearl oyster, for example, grows throughout its life, and at some point the muscular leg on which it rests ceases to withstand the weight of the shell - and it falls, and then dies of hunger. Similarly, the giant tortoise dies because it cannot bear the weight of its shell.

Another ageless animal is the naked mole rat, a rodent that lives underground in colonies along
200-250 individuals. He lives up to 30 years, and with age, the probability of death does not increase with him. How and why he dies - no one knows: he has no cancer, no stroke, no diabetes, no other fatal diseases, his immune system does not age. Similarly, no one knows why giant whales die.

Man also has no enemies but himself. Why don't we cancel this program for ourselves?

We've got rid of our enemies too recently. For something to change, about 100 thousand years must pass. But I think we are getting there.

How did you come up with the idea to create a cure for aging?

Any student of my faculty knows how to stop the chain of events that trigger the death of a cell. Why not then create a substance that will stop the aging of the human body?! Of course, it would be ideal to find the genes responsible for death in a person and “knock out” them. But so far there is no talk of such a level of work.

What is the basis of the action of your substance and what results can we talk about today?

We created it with a very simple logic: a person seems to be slowly being poisoned by some kind of poison. The best candidate for this role is reactive oxygen species. Nature itself figured out how to deal with them by creating antioxidants: for example, vitamins E, C, which we get from food, coenzyme Q. The composition of our substance also includes an antioxidant - we borrowed it from plants: they themselves form oxygen and therefore learned perfectly take off fight. Its second part is a cation, which is called the "Skulachev ion" (this term was coined by the American biochemist David Green). Working on our substance, we started from the discovery that Efim Arsenievich Lieberman and I made back in 1969. We have established that mitochondria (special organelles that are inside the cell) are power plants that convert chemical energy into electrical energy, and that the difference in electrical potentials on their membrane has a minus intramitochondrial sign. As you know, plus tends to minus, and positively charged Skulachev ions, due to some of their features, freely pass through the mitochondrial membrane and deliver the antioxidant attached to them.

Experiments have shown that our substance prolongs the life of various organisms - from fungi to mammals. For example, mice began to live twice as long. They lost or slowed down more than 30 signs of aging, menopause disappeared, immunity strengthened, they stopped suffering from infections. They died, as a rule, from cancer: unfortunately, our substance has no effect on this disease. We've had our best results with a very interesting creature, the mole vole, which apparently doesn't have a cancer program. And experiments on Drosophila have shown that it is not necessary to take this medicine all your life - only the first 10 days are enough. However, if you start taking it in old age and do not cancel it until the end of your life, the effect will be the same. This is very important - it means that not everything is hopeless for the elderly: they can also be treated for old age.

Soon, I think, our substance will be sold in pharmacies as a cure for eye diseases. We already have an official certificate that it is the first in the world! - radically cures a disease called "dry eye". We conducted experiments on people in Moscow eye hospitals, and in three weeks 60% of patients got rid of this terrible disease, which is considered incurable. Now we are putting on a longer experience, and I think the result should be even better. In addition, animal experiments have shown that this medicine treats glaucoma, cataracts (incredibly, but it disappears - I cured my cataract myself), uveitis, macular degeneration. And, importantly, you need very little of it. To cure the eyes of all domestic cats, dogs and horses in Russia, 4 g of the substance is needed per year.

Does taking conventional antioxidants in the current dosage form not give the desired result?

Unfortunately no. The first defect of conventional antioxidants, such as vitamin E, is that they do not work properly. Poisonous forms of oxygen are formed in the inner membrane of the mitochondria, while antioxidants penetrate all membranes. Therefore, they must be taken in large quantities - and hence the second, more terrible defect of antioxidants: a special system in the liver destroys them and turns them into carcinogens. We cannot eat vitamin E with spoons. The colossal advantage of our substance is that it goes inside the mitochondria, and you need to take it, as I said, in a nanoquantity.

Ridding a person of old age and prolonging his life, you go against nature and evolution. Will this lead to catastrophic consequences?

My favorite saying is that when we want to take off, we build a plane, we don't wait for wings to grow behind us. Evolution is an adaptation to the environment, and we ourselves create this environment. We are cold - we dress warmer or turn on the heater, and the beast must grow its skin. We even extended our brains with the help of a computer. We don't need evolution. Perhaps in a million years our activities will provoke something negative, but I think by then we will either blow ourselves up or learn to cope with new problems. A person gets smarter very quickly: I remember, quite recently, at the end of the past century, it was believed that genes would be read at the end of the 21st century, and geneticists read them in the first decade.

Will you create additional problems: overpopulation, food shortages, competition for jobs?

The land is empty - if you fly to the Far East, hundreds of kilometers of uninhabited land are visible. In addition, you can go the same way as the Chinese: to limit the birth rate. Here is such an alternative: to live happily ever after, without diseases and die for some random reasons, but then limit the birth rate - or die of old age. This is a social question, and its solution depends on the rationality of the social order. After all, when antibiotics were invented, people also began to live longer, their number increased, but there were no problems associated with this.

How will people die if aging is abolished?

Even now, in a civilized society, every tenth death is not related to old age - it is either suicide, or an infection, or a car accident, or the result of an injury. So when a person gets tired of living, he can commit suicide. In addition, when we live much longer, real senile diseases will appear - not programmed, like the current ones, but real ones. Some defects will appear, which are insignificant for a modern person, because he does not live so long. The best example is whales. Over the years, more and more L-amino acids spontaneously convert into D-amino acids in the proteins of the lens of their eyes, and by the age of two hundred whales, apparently, because of this, go blind. If they had lived less, this would not have happened. Here is a real senile disease, and our medicine will not help in any way from it. That is, new diseases will arise or rare old ones will develop, for which a person is not ready.

And they will lead to death? So we're not talking about immortality?

In relation to man, it will probably be possible to speak even of immortality. Unlike whales, we can replace our lens.

Are there natural ways to prolong youth?

You can prolong youth with the help of fasting - they lengthen the life of everyone, even yeast: if they are limited in nutrition, they live longer. In America, an interesting experiment has been going on for 20 years on macaques (they live 35-40 years), which already shows that if macaques receive 40% fewer calories per day, their aging program slows down and a lot of signs of aging simply do not develop. I think the religious dogma about fasting is a subtle observation about how to live longer. Constant hunger certainly shortens life, and periods of food restriction, on the contrary, prolong it. Another way, apparently, is regular and persistent physical training. Although this is much less researched, less effective than dietary restriction, and less radical way.

The amazing property of the aging program is that you can try to slow it down at any time. That is, it is never too late to start playing sports, as well as to start fasting. At the last Olympics for the elderly, about 20 gold medals were won by a 90-odd Canadian who only started training at the age of 70 when she retired.

What is aging? Some scientists believe that aging is a natural process and by-product evolution. Others see aging as a disease that can be cured. Both of them study the aging process on different levels: at the level of damage to biomolecules, at the level of cell aging or the mechanical effects of organ and skeletal wear. To figure out what it says modern science about aging, The New Times asked one of the world's most famous experts in this field - Professor Jay Olshansky from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Paying for sex

Jay Olshansky argues that aging and death are the result of sexual reproduction. Bacteria that reproduce by fission do not age, but people age - because for a person who reproduces sexually, eternal life is evolutionarily useless. Olshansky compares the human body to a racing car, which is designed so that it can reach the finish line of the race, in the case of a person - before the birth and rearing of children.

What will happen to this car after the finish, its designers are not interested. The "designer" of man was Darwinian natural selection. Random genetic mutations that increased the mortality of our ancestors before puberty have been weeded out over millions of years of evolution. And mutations that contributed to diseases of the elderly (for example, Alzheimer's disease) were not eliminated, because they did not interfere with the performance of the main function - reproduction.

One of the first evolutionary theories of aging was proposed at the beginning of the 20th century by the famous German biologist August Weismann. According to Weisman, the duration of human life was determined in the process of evolution not by the diseases of old age, but by the characteristics of the habitat of Homo sapiens 130 thousand years ago, during the formation of our species in the African savannah. The life of our ancestors in those days was full of illnesses and tragic incidents: archaeologists have found a large number of deformed bones due to malunion of fractures, as well as jaws showing loss of teeth in early age due to persistent infections. Children and sick adults were often victims large predators- lions, tigers and crocodiles. Because of this, the majority did not live up to 20 years, and after 40 people were considered old. From the point of view of natural selection, this was the "end of the race."

Bacteria are better

Why can bacteria divide indefinitely? human cells- No? Is it possible to force human cells to divide indefinitely, replacing old cells with young ones for thousands of years? In 1961, biologists Leonard Hayflick and Paul Moorehead of the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia showed that most human cells can divide no more than 50 times. Exceptions are cells that produce sperm, stem cells, and cancer cells. Why is this happening? This is due to the DNA copying mechanism. Human DNA is a thread that has a beginning and an end. The "copier" of DNA (the enzyme polymerase) cannot start copying from the very end of one of the strands. Therefore, the end of the DNA strand is not copied. After numerous copies of the DNA is shortened, and then cellular mechanisms prohibit the cell from further division or give an order to self-destruct 1 .

Bacteria do not have this problem, as their DNA is twisted into a ring that has no "ends". Bacterial DNA can be copied from anywhere without loss of information. And human cells that produce sperm produce a special protein called telomerase, which repairs the ends of DNA (telomeres). When Carol Greider and Elizabeth Blackburn discovered telomerase in 1984, some people thought they had found the “elixir of immortality,” a means to renew the tissues of the human body indefinitely.

Unfortunately, telomerase is produced not only by cells associated with reproduction, but also by cells cancerous tumor 2. According to Olshansky, at the current level of science, the use of telomerase may simply increase the patient's risk of developing a cancerous tumor, since scientists do not yet understand enough complex mechanisms regulation of genes in the cell. At the same time, Olshansky does not rule out that "perhaps in the future there will come a time when we can regenerate tissues into a healthier state."

Attack of the radicals

One of the approaches to explain aging is the theory free radicals, first proposed by Denham Harman in 1956. Free radicals are fragments of molecules with an unpaired electron. They arise in the process normal functioning organism and exist for tiny fractions of a second. But over the course of their existence, free radicals can cause damage to DNA, proteins and cell membranes. The body is able to defend itself against free radical attacks with the help of protein enzymes.

In 1996, researchers Rajindar Sokhal and Richard Weindruk created transgenic fruit flies with extra copies of the genes that code for these enzymes, and indeed, maximum time The lifespan of flies is 34% longer than the maximum lifespan of their counterparts without additional genes. Can you do the same with people? According to Olshansky, “this will not happen. We are not going to genetically modify ourselves in order to extend life. If we did, we would surely negative sides. Instead, you can study how biochemical mechanisms work and create drugs that do the same.”

Many vitamins, such as vitamin C and E, are antioxidants, meaning substances that can neutralize free radicals. Animal experiments have shown that vitamin supplements can reduce the risk of cancer and cardiovascular disease. Professor Olshansky considers these supplements in most cases useless, because the same antioxidants can be obtained simply by eating a lot of vegetables and fruits.

Eat less!

Other researchers are trying to alleviate old age with hormone injections. In 1990, The New England Journal of Medicine published an article by endocrinologist Daniel Rudman, who injected GH into twelve men between the ages of 61 and 80 three times a week for 6 months. Rudman found that these men had increased muscle mass, decreased fat, more elastic skin, improved sleep, and lowered cholesterol. Critics of this approach point out that the same health benefits can be achieved with regular exercise.

In addition to GH, the role of the “elixir of life” was claimed by the hormones melatonin, DHEA, testosterone and others. Mice supplemented with DHEA lived on average 40% longer than mice without the hormone. Unfortunately, the results of this experiment are ambiguous. The fact is that DHEA impairs the taste of food, and therefore mice could simply eat less, consuming fewer calories. And calorie restriction is the only well-proven way to prolong life. Back in 1934, Clive McKay and Mary Crowell of Cornell University showed that mice put on a semi-starved diet live twice as long. Unfortunately, this way of dealing with old age is impractical for a person: it is impossible to work fruitfully and enjoy life, constantly thinking about food.

Alternative evolution

Even if biologists can defeat aging at the molecular and cellular levels, they are unlikely to be able to correct the major defects in human “architecture” that have remained since our ancestors began to walk on two legs instead of four, which led to premature wear of the vertebrae, bones and joints. . In 2001, Jay Olshansky, Bruce Karnes, and Robert Butler wrote an article in Scientific American in which they drew what a person who could live beyond 120 years would look like. From the page of the magazine, a strange creature is looking at us - short, leaning forward, with thick muscular legs and knees turned back, with additional ribs, large ears, a curved neck, additional valves in the veins of the legs and radically modified eyes.

During the 20th century, life expectancy in developed countries increased from 47 to 77 years. This is the biggest leap in the history of mankind. It was due to the invention of antibiotics and medical advances in the fight against many diseases. Can we expect a similar leap in the 21st century? This is unlikely, argues Professor Olshansky. After defeating mortality young age scientists are faced with the fundamental limitations of the human body, which are the consequences of its long evolution. Significant life extension would require a redesign of the human body, both at the molecular level and at the level of organs and skeleton. the main objective modern gerontologists - not to prolong life, but to save old age from unpleasant diseases that overshadow it. Perhaps it is worth thinking not about how to squeeze a little time out of life, but how to try to live the time allotted to us fruitfully, interestingly and with pleasure.

1 Apoptosis is programmed cell death. The New Times wrote about this in detail in No. 29, July 21, 2008.

2 Cancer scientists still use cultured HeLa cells from the cancer of a woman named Henrietta Lacks. This woman died in 1951, but the cells from her tumor are going to live forever.

What is aging and death?

I call the point of view of the “vulgar Darwinists” pessimistic: if it is correct, it will do nothing with aging, and gerontology is just a descriptive science that studies the path to the cemetery. And I consider Weismann's theory optimistic: if it is written in the genes that you first need to be born, then grow up, stop growing and begin to age, then this program can be intervened and slowed down or even canceled.

Which of these theories prevails now?

Until the end of the 20th century, the Darwinian point of view dominated science. Even now, traditional gerontology is still pessimistic, but the Weismann hypothesis is shared by more and more scientists, because there is not a single argument that would definitively refute it. In addition, in the second half of the last century, an event occurred that dramatically changed the balance between these points of view - the phenomenon of programmed death of a living cell was found (this phenomenon, called "apoptosis", certainly arose in the course of evolution). It turned out that in every cell there are genes in which its suicide is programmed. Moreover, it turned out that the cell is a terrible pessimist: it is always ready to commit suicide, and in order for it to live, it must be pushed to this by a special protein. Scientists who discovered the genes for the apoptosis program in the nematode worm received the Nobel Prize in 2003.

Do organisms have programmed death?

When scientists learned about cell suicide, they speculated that there might be an organism's suicide program as well. And they turned out to be right: unicellular organisms, such as bacteria and yeast, have it. Here's what happens to yeast: in order to attract a cell of the opposite sex, they (like people) secrete special substances - pheromones, which not only attract, but also kill the yeast of the opposite sex if the concentration of the pheromone rises. Some time ago, it turned out that mammals have the same program: for example, male marsupial mice living in Australia die ten days after the end of the rut from their own pheromones. More recently, an outstanding discovery has been made in Belgium. They studied a herb called Arabidopsis (in Russian - rezushka), which lives for two and a half months: its seeds emit a substance of an unknown nature, which kills the rezushka in just ten days. There are approximately 35,000 genes in the cress genome, of which only two are responsible for sexual reproduction, that is, for flowering. When these two genes were removed, the cress became immortal - it turned into a bush, acquired a thick stem, grew large leaves and began to reproduce vegetatively, by rhizome, and not sexually. This means that the cress has a backup program, apparently an older one: just as ferns and horsetails were once trees, the cress was a bush, and then became a small grass and started sexual reproduction. In this example, we see how death arose. By the way, this echoes the religious dogmas that Adam was immortal until he met Eve and until sexual reproduction began.

At what age does human aging begin and how does it manifest itself?

I have a family I know, who in the difficult years after the collapse of the USSR were fed by an almost 100-year-old grandfather - he prepared schoolchildren for entering the university. Grandfather no longer recognized his relatives, he could not serve himself, but when students came to him, he worked with them perfectly. The function of the brain, which he trained all his life, remained impeccable. It is generally known that if a person ceases to engage in mental activity, his abilities degrade. By the way, the fact that the human body does not age synchronously: something breaks down at 15, something at 95, is not at all explained by pessimistic gerontologists.

Some animals have “cancelled” their aging program. How and why did they do it?

The aging program is canceled by organisms that have no enemies, so they have nowhere to evolve. Aesop once said: the hare will always run away from the fox, because for him it is a matter of life and death, and for the fox it is a matter of dinner. But this is true only for young hares. Now consider old hares: suppose one of them is smart, the other is stupid, but both can still produce offspring. If they see a fox, the smart one will run away, and the stupid one will stop to look at it - and the fox will eat him. Smart will survive and spawn smart rabbits. Aging is a way to speed up evolution. And if there are no foxes, then hares do not need aging. Therefore, such creatures as, for example, a giant tortoise (it is protected by a shell), a giant whale, a river pearl mussel (none of the river inhabitants can gnaw through the valves of this mollusk) do not age. Most ageless organisms are constantly growing and become more fertile with age. A pearl oyster, for example, grows throughout its life, and at some point the muscular leg on which it rests ceases to withstand the weight of the shell - and it falls, and then dies of hunger. Similarly, the giant tortoise dies because it cannot bear the weight of its shell.

Another ageless animal is the naked mole rat, a rodent that lives underground in colonies of 200-250 individuals. He lives up to 30 years, and with age, the probability of death does not increase with him. How and why he dies - no one knows: he has no cancer, no stroke, no diabetes, no other fatal diseases, his immune system does not age. Similarly, no one knows why giant whales die.

Man also has no enemies but himself. Why don't we cancel this program for ourselves?

We've got rid of our enemies too recently. For something to change, about 100 thousand years must pass. But I think we are getting there.

How did you come up with the idea to create a cure for aging?

What is the basis of the action of your substance and what results can we talk about today?

We created it with a very simple logic: a person seems to be slowly being poisoned by some kind of poison. The best candidate for this role is reactive oxygen species. Nature itself figured out how to deal with them by creating antioxidants: for example, vitamins E, C, which we get from food, coenzyme Q. Our substance also includes an antioxidant - we borrowed it from plants: they themselves form oxygen and therefore have learned perfectly fight him. Its second part is a cation, which is called the "Skulachev ion" (this term was coined by the American biochemist David Green). Working on our substance, we started from the discovery that Efim Arsenievich Lieberman and I made back in 1969. We have established that mitochondria (special organelles that are inside the cell) are power plants that convert chemical energy into electrical energy, and that the difference in electrical potentials on their membrane has a minus sign inside the mitochondria. As you know, plus tends to minus, and positively charged Skulachev ions, due to some of their features, freely pass through the mitochondrial membrane and deliver the antioxidant attached to them.

Experiments have shown that our substance prolongs the life of various organisms - from fungi to mammals. For example, mice began to live twice as long. They lost or slowed down more than 30 signs of aging, menopause disappeared, immunity strengthened, they stopped suffering from infections. They died, as a rule, from cancer: unfortunately, our substance has no effect on this disease. Our best results have been on a very interesting creature, the mole vole, which does not appear to have a cancer program. And experiments on Drosophila have shown that it is not necessary to take this medicine all your life - only the first 10 days are enough. However, if you start taking it in old age and do not cancel it until the end of your life, the effect will be the same. This is very important - it means that not everything is hopeless for the elderly: they can also be treated for old age.

Soon, I think, our substance will be sold in pharmacies as a cure for eye diseases. We already have an official certificate that it - the first in the world! - radically cures a disease called "dry eye". We conducted experiments on people in Moscow eye hospitals, and in three weeks 60% of patients got rid of this terrible disease, which is considered incurable. Now we are putting on a longer experience, and I think the result should be even better. In addition, animal experiments have shown that this medicine treats glaucoma, cataracts (incredibly, but it disappears - I cured my cataract myself), uveitis, macular degeneration. And, importantly, you need very little of it. To cure the eyes of all domestic cats, dogs and horses in Russia, 4 g of the substance is needed per year.

Does taking conventional antioxidants in the current dosage form not give the desired result?

Ridding a person of old age and prolonging his life, you go against nature and evolution. Will this lead to catastrophic consequences?

Will you create additional problems: overpopulation, food shortages, competition for jobs?

How will people die if aging is abolished?

And they will lead to death? So we're not talking about immortality?

In relation to man, it will probably be possible to speak even of immortality. Unlike whales, we can replace our lens.

Are there natural ways to prolong youth?

Now only one thing is known for certain about the elixir of immortality to mankind - that it was. But the recipe seems to have been lost. Or maybe it was destroyed, as the heroine of Chapek's famous drama "The Makropulos Remedy" did in a fit of noble, but destructive feelings. The science fiction writers Strugatsky acted even more irresponsibly - they entrusted the production of the elixir to nature itself. And they did not pass it to the chemical laboratory for analysis. If today's scientists knew the ingredients, they would have reproduced living water in industrial volumes, and the fear of death would have been completely removed from the agenda.

Fearing the inevitable end, ancient and medieval alchemists rummaged through old parchments, found some compositions, and tried to reproduce them. They also tried to make their own recipes... Thomas Aquinas, Albert Magnus, Roger Bacon, Cornelius Agrippa and many others. An alchemist is said to have dictated his own recipe for the elixir of immortality...on his deathbed.

But nothing is known about any immortal, except for Ahasuerus. Do not consider, in fact, Duncan Macleod and his rivals from the famous series as such. This show drags on for a long, long time, but the inevitable will happen someday with the Highlander.

Very professional recipe personal doctor Pope Boniface VIII (XI century). In crushed form, the most noble materials were mixed - gold, pearls, sapphire, emerald. Powders from ruby and topaz, red and white coral, ivory, sandalwood. The mixture was flavored with aloe root, musk and amber. It all ended with the addition of the heart of a red deer. However, despite the regular intake of truly precious powders, Boniface managed to propagate for only nine years. Died...

In the Eastern collections of ancient wisdom, the recipes are more bizarre. For example, they recommend taking a toad that has lived 10,000 years and bat thousand years old, dry them in the shade, grind them into powder and take homeopathic doses. It is difficult to overcome European squeamishness, but one could take the risk if one knew where the pet shop that sells such ancient animals is.

But oriental people You won’t be scared by any ingredients - you really want to live, live and live too much. Chinese emperor Xuanzong (8th century) even died after taking the elixir of immortality. It can be seen that then the Taoist monks had not yet guessed to check their drugs for guinea pigs. They immediately set up an experiment on the emperor.

However, they themselves also accepted something. Not so radical, though. Zhai Daoling (34-156), the founder of Tao philosophy, at the age of 60, with the help of the elixir he made, managed to rejuvenate himself and live up to 122 years.

His followers believed that the elixir should consist of ordinary substances found in nature. The main thing in a reasonable ratio of feminine and masculine is yin and yang. For example, lead, in their opinion, abounded with yin energy, and mercury with yang energy. From these two substances, the alchemist created Pure Yang. She no longer possessed the properties of either yin or yang and was considered an elixir eternal youth. Chinese alchemists hoped that by controlling the energies of yin and yang, they would be able to control the rhythms of nature. But they soon became convinced that the absorption of mercury (and lead too) does not go well with immortality and, in general, with life. That is why they switched from the so-called external alchemy to internal. By manipulating the two components of any person - qin (spiritual, heavenly essence) and ming (the body shell of a person on earth), alchemists achieved transcendental knowledge. In which that death, that immortality - all the same ...

Live long and happy...

But does man need immortality? If you think well, then God save us from this misfortune! No wonder the wisest King Solomon was wise enough to refuse to accept the elixir offered to him.

But I would like to live a long time, and preferably in a vigorous and capable state. Well, at least as long as Methuselah lived, or other Old Testament elders. So 800-900 years ...

Not only biblical characters reached a very advanced age. An ancient legend says that the Greek priest and poet Epimenides managed to extend his life to 300 years. Pliny the Elder writes about an Illyrian who lived to be 500 years old. According to the chronicles, Bishop Allen de Lispe, being a very old man, took a mysterious drug in 1218 and lived for another 60 years. 246 years, according to municipal records, lived the Chinese Li Cunyong (1690-1936), who survived 23 wives during this time. And the twenty-fourth became a widow. Eyewitnesses of the last years of Lee's too long life say that he was incredibly thin. And he constantly took some kind of herbal medicine.

It is known that Joseph Balsamo, Count of Cagliostro (1743-1795) had a recipe for prolonging youth. In his "healing" activities, he repeatedly used it, but carefully concealed the composition. However, for some reason, he opened up with the pharmacist Kade. And this is what he whispered to him: "For 15 days, simmer 1.5 liters of vodka, 8 g of cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg, 2 g each of saffron, gentian and uzik, 24 g of sabur, 12 g of myrrh, 24 g of pure theriac, 1 centigram of musk. Then strain it all and add 750 g of Orange Blossom syrup. Kade, of course, advertised the drug widely and charged dearly for it. But apparently it didn't work very well. Because in 1858 a certain Mr. Dupleix called the elixir fake and had nothing to do with Balsamo. And he declared himself the keeper of the original recipe for the count's drug: "800 g of cloves, the same amount Chinese cinnamon and nutmeg, 200 g each of saffron, gentian, uzik, 2400 g of sabur, 1200 g of wine, 2500 g of pure theriac and 36 liters of 85 percent alcohol. Soak all this for 48 hours, distill slowly until you get 36 liters good product, add 50 kg of white sugar, 15 centigrams of musk tincture and 3 liters of Orange Blossom. Dilute the composition with water so that 100 liters of liquor are obtained. After that, filter and cork.

Cagliostro himself, alas, could not prolong his life, because last years spent in a deep well, chained to the wall, and did not have the opportunity to make a wondrous drink.

Folk recipes are simple but effective

Numerous means are known traditional medicine, rejuvenating the body, which are well treated even modern doctors. For example, in Tibet, in one of the Buddhist temples, clay tablets were found with a recipe that the monks have been using for 7 thousand years: grate 200 g of garlic, place in an earthenware (glass will do) vessel, pour 200 g of alcohol and close tightly. Keep the tincture in a dark place for 10 days, strain and take 15 drops three times a day 20 minutes before meals, adding to cold milk.

Ancient Abkhaz healers also advise rejuvenating with garlic: mix 400 g of grated garlic with the juice of 24 lemons, pour into a jar, tying the neck with gauze. Take two weeks in a row a day for 1 tsp, diluted in a glass of boiled water.
Generally different peoples different opinions about life extension products. The French, for example, believe that the truth is in wine. In red. The French paradox is widely known - the level of cardiovascular and oncological diseases in Southern France is many times lower than in other European countries and the USA. Because they drink "one glass of red wine". Scientists believe that this is due to active substances- polyphenols, which are abundant in the seeds and skins of red grapes.

Modern cases of long life suggest that our estimate of human lifespan may not be accurate, and that we die so early not because of genes, but because of adverse impact external environment, political troubles and own imprudence. AT Ancient Rome the average life expectancy was 20-25 years. Wars, epidemics, lack of hygiene, infant mortality ... In disadvantaged countries - on the African continent or in South America - it has not grown very much even now. And in countries that are convenient for human life, like Japan, Sweden, Switzerland and France, it is now 70-74 years for men and 80-82 for women.

But these are averages. The extreme frontiers are reached mainly by residents of ecologically clean regions of the Earth. It is not for nothing that people living in the central regions of Sri Lanka, in the Andean regions, in the Caucasus beat records of life expectancy. And the most high concentration centenarians (people who are over 100 years old) in the small mountain village of Bama in southern China. It has 58 centenarians for 220 people. They are still working in the field and feel very cheerful. They say that because twice a day they drink a glass of strong rice wine, which is considered the elixir of longevity. It is produced at a local factory in the amount of 300 thousand bottles per year and is intended only for local residents. The composition, on which the amazing wine is insisted, includes about forty various herbs and plants, dried snakes and lizards, and - you can’t throw out the words from the song! - Dried dog and deer penises.

There is also a "Village of Longevity" in Japan - Yuzuri Hara. Its inhabitants do not sit on special diets, do not drink medicines, smoke, are lazy to go in for sports. And yet over ten percent of Yuzuri's population is over 85 years old. There are no signs of old age on the faces of the Yuzurs, and physically they feel much better than many young Japanese. They do not know the suffering of Alzheimer's disease, diabetes and cancer. And, unlike most Japanese, they have 100% vision. Doctors believe that the substance with which Yuzuri's earth is literally impregnated like a sponge - "oxide hyalurgy" is "to blame" for their amazing health. From the soil, this substance enters the rice, sweet potato and radish. accumulating in human body, it contributes accelerated metabolism and renewal of old cells.

Arsenal of immortality

Modern "alchemists" talk about biological mechanisms aging at the cellular level, and therefore more purposefully conduct their search and have already achieved a lot.

To live forever, you need to understand the molecules of glycoproteins, due to which connective tissue loses elasticity, the walls of the arteries harden, the eyes become cloudy, nervous system works worse, the kidneys can not cope with the load. While a person is young, glycoproteins are broken down and excreted from the body. As we age, this process is no longer so smooth and uninterrupted.

Scientists believe that hormone therapy can stimulate the mechanism of excretion of glycoproteins from the body. Expensive growth hormone injections for men in their sixties and older stop typical signs aging - flabbiness, thinning of the skin, weakness.

True, hormones can have not only positive, but also negative impact per person, up to stimulating the growth of cancerous tumors.

Experiments with brain stem cells are in full swing (they serve as the basis for the formation of new cells). Scientists inject them into the brains of mice with a genetically transmitted defect. Stem cells move to where they need to be restored dead cells and work successfully. If stem cells are transplanted to a person, then this means getting rid of the consequences of Alzheimer's disease, stroke, multiple sclerosis and a number of congenital brain defects.

And of course, no one seems fantastic games of scientists with genes. All components of the human genome are already known. Soon no one will be scared of a genetic predisposition to disease. And this means that a person without diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, will live several decades longer.

Another possibility is presented to humanity by the genes of aging. Changes in them will mean that a person will be less susceptible to the damaging effects of free radicals. In one experiment, it was possible to increase the life of a worm six times in this way. Considering that maximum duration If a person lives 120 years, then for a person the same operation would mean at least five hundred years of life.

Except chemical substances, capable of prolonging life, scientists are looking more closely at electronics. AI experts predict merger nervous tissue man with computer chips. They implanted a microchip in a deaf man - he began to hear like never before. to the blind eagle vision? Yes, easily. Let's just implant a microchip. And if you imagine what opportunities for development creativity, manifestations of miracles of memory and restoration of the functions of organs give us microchips, so the head will spin.

Watch what you eat

The problem of longevity is not only dealt with by institutions. There are lone enthusiasts who are trying to find a recipe for life extension. Biologist Suren Arakelyan, for example, is convinced that it is already possible to plan to overcome the 120-year milestone for most people. In the future, the figure of 300-500 years is quite real. True, for this you will have to starve pretty badly. Because Arakelyan builds his method on the theory of physiological beneficial fasting and detoxification.

Any enthusiastic researcher puts an experiment on himself, and Arakelyan (born in 1926) has been living in an extreme regime since 1965. Starving on the first, second and third of each month, one week - once every three months, two weeks - once every six months and a month - once a year. On non-starvation days, the scientist practices a two-time meal, consisting of 50 grams of raisins or two raw carrots, or one orange, apple, or 100 grams of fresh cabbage, or 50 grams of peas, beans, lentils, or 100 grams of raw wheat grains, buckwheat (barley ) cereals. At his age, Arakelyan feels excellent, he easily plays with a weight. However, many of us are unlikely to wait for the results of this experiment - after all, the sufferer-experimenter should be 120 years old only after 34 years.

Arakelyan's predecessor, who proposed a similar method of rejuvenation, was Paul Bragg. He ate only food that had not undergone chemical processing, and once every three months he fasted for ten days. At 95, he was extremely strong and agile, climbing mountains, playing tennis, dancing, and surfing. What caused the death - off the coast of Florida, he was covered by a giant wave. The autopsy showed that all internal organs The 95-year old man was in excellent condition. And let him live for a very long time.

Laureate Nobel Prize Linus Pauling also believes that life extension requires special treatment diet and the use of certain vitamins and antioxidants. They help prevent premature aging and an increase in life expectancy. But they should not be taken in the form of colored balls from a pharmacy, but only in their natural form. According to Pauling, you need to eat at least 600 g of beets, cabbage, onions, garlic, potatoes, fresh herbs every day, at least 300 g of fresh fruits or berries. And yet - about 400 grams of various fermented milk drinks.

How many doctors, so many prescriptions

From Antioxidants Special attention experts give dibunol.

It has a positive effect on the circulatory system in humans, increases the elasticity of blood vessels, has antitumor activity. Successfully used in the treatment of myocardial infarction, cancer Bladder, stomach ulcers, various burns. And in general, it seems to slow down aging.

To rejuvenate the body, the Swiss doctor P. Nigans suggested injecting serum from the tissues of newborn fallow deer into it. Scientists from the Second Moscow medical institute managed to double the life of experimental mice with the help of royal jelly bees. American Robert A. Wilson restores youth to women by injecting the female sex hormones estrogen and progesterone. The Swedes are trying to do the same with the hormone thymosin. Russian researcher A. Kostenko is convinced that aging is based on the accumulation of hydroxyapatite Ca5(PO4)3OH, the "mineral of death", which is formed during the life of the body, just as scale forms in a teapot. He sees the way out in the artificial acidification of the body (for example, with the help of carbon dioxide). He periodically subjected aged mice to acid washing in a medium enriched with CO2. Why improved the condition of their eyes, wool, growth medium duration life reached 131 percent, and four mice lived to be five years old, which corresponds to about 220 human years!

There is one more curious experiment made on a rat. Her climacteric period, usually equal to several days, was artificially extended to 40 days. Twice a day, the rat received a drug that did not allow menopause to come, thanks to which she retained her biological age, time, as it were, stopped for her body. Of course, she did not become younger, but she lived for a long time.
Some researchers are trying to lower the temperature human body. It is known that the smaller it is, the slower everything goes. physiological processes. A decrease in body temperature by only 2 degrees will increase life expectancy up to two centuries. A decrease by 4 degrees will give a generally fantastic result - 700 years of life!

But for this a person must become very, very cold-blooded. Colder than snakes The question is what is better - to lead a long creeping life, economically expending energy, or still live with a hot, but, alas, so quickly burning heart.