Medicines for old age … Do they exist? Currently no. But modern science is constantly moving in this direction.
If we consider the aging process at the molecular level, then it loses all meaning, since the cells of the body are constantly renewing. However, old age comes all the same. A person accepts old age as an inevitable process, but science is fighting aging, and even more, has already made a huge step forward in this direction. Already in the last century, life expectancy has increased significantly, currently amounting to 80 years. For comparison, in 1900, life expectancy in European states was only 47 years. At the same time, new diseases have appeared that accompany old age, in particular, Alzheimer's disease, for which there is still no cure.
Scientists are well aware of the problems of medicine, therefore they are in constant search of opportunities and means to restore the lost strength of the body. The main goal of these searches is to restore the body's ability to self-regulate under stress, changes in weather conditions and other conditions. To preserve youth, it is necessary to keep the human body healthy, fight diseases, and if science succeeds, then life expectancy will increase several times.
Dr. E. Blackburn made a discovery that earned her the Nobel Prize. She discovered the enzyme telomerase, which is found in chromosomes. This enzyme sends a signal to the cells to stop growing. Scientists around the world are currently looking for ways to activate telomerase and target it to combat aging.
It should be noted that until science knew about the existence of telomerase, scientists tried to find alternative methods to combat the aging of the human body, in particular, by replacing organs with machines, as well as creating cyborgs, cloning, and creating 3D organs. At the moment, science focuses on replacing individual parts of the body, but telomerase still has to work.
However, scientists make bold predictions that in 60-70 years they will be able to find a way to increase the duration of human life up to 150 years.
According to scientists, one of the main problems of humanity is global aging. According to gerontologists, in a decade more than a quarter of people on the entire planet will be over 60 years old, and by 2050 the number of people who have lived to be 80 years old will triple. But this problem concerns not only age, but also the quality of life. So, at present, almost 80 percent of people who have lived to 65 years of age have at least several chronic diseases, in particular, arthritis, cancer, cardiovascular diseases, stroke, diabetes. Medical scientists admit that they are not yet ready for global aging, even despite the rapid development of genetic engineering, pharmacology, bioprosthetics and other equally promising technologies.
The anti-aging industry started to develop relatively recently, but even now the world's largest companies consider it one of the most promising. For example, Google is investing billions of dollars in the development of Calico, which conducts basic research in the field of age-related diseases and aging.
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The head of this project was the head of the board of directors of the biotech company Genentech and Apple, Arthur Levinson. In other words, only the most developed, large corporations with highly qualified specialists and financial resources, who are equally strong in science and technology, get down to business. Pharmaceutical companies are gradually joining the process. Thus, corporations such as Hoffman-LaRoshe and Novartis also presented their own anti-aging programs. Thus, it is likely that the generation living today will witness the advent of pills for eternal life on the market.
Biologists, it must be said, do not deny the possibility of immortality. So, according to the scientist-physicist from the USA R. Feynman, if people decided to create a perpetual motion machine, then physical laws would prevent them. But if we talk about biology, then most scientists agree that there are no fundamental principles in the world that would limit the duration of human life or prohibit immortality. At the moment, the main obstacles, biologists are sure, are the limited limit of cell division or Hayflick's limit, as well as the deterioration of collagen, which plays the role of a bonding element in the body. However, all these problems can be solved.
It is quite possible that the so-called pill for old age will not be the only pill, but will consist of a whole set of certain drugs that will need to be taken daily in certain doses.
According to L. Fontana, an American professor of medicine at the University of Washington, in order to create drugs that could increase life expectancy, it is necessary to study in detail the molecular basis of aging. At the moment, many biochemical reactions are already known that lead to atrophy of tissues, cells and whole organs. If a person learns to change them by choosing the right molecules, then he will be able to control all the processes in the body. The structure of molecules can be changed in many ways - hormonal, genetic, metabolic, chemical. Until recently, clinical and laboratory studies and tests were carried out exclusively on animals,But with the help of mathematical algorithms, scientists can already now simulate the reaction of the human body to a particular drug without actually taking it and calculate the dosage for each person individually. Moreover, there are already prototypes of immortality pills - these are drugs that are used to treat diabetes and cancer.
Thus, it turns out that pharmaceutical companies can quite easily go through all the necessary official procedures in order to re-register an already existing drug as a geroprotector. However, in reality, everything is far from simple. A striking example of this is rapamycin, which is used in the treatment of cancer, Alzheimer's disease and cardiovascular diseases. In addition, this drug is recommended after various organ transplants. Not so long ago, this drug began to be promoted on the market as an anti-aging agent.
This drug blocks signaling pathways that regulate metabolism and growth. When the system is active, cells grow and divide, assimilating nutrients and making proteins. If the system is blocked, the body goes into the so-called economy mode, destroying everything potentially harmful. Rapamycin works in the same way - by blocking the growth of cancer cells, it also blocks the aging process.
Scientists have conducted research on mice. When the drug was administered to mice at the age of 2, that is, at the end of their average lifespan, males lived 9 percent longer and females 14 percent longer. Accordingly, if the drug is taken by people aged 65, they will be able to live up to about 90-95 years.
The problem, however, is that rapamycin also suppresses the immune system, and if given to elderly people who are already immunocompromised, they become extremely vulnerable to life-threatening infections.
Another drug that has attracted great interest of scientists due to its ability to inhibit the mechanism of aging of cells and tissues and reduce their functional activity is metformin, which is used to treat diabetes. Currently, scientists are actively exploring the possibility of using this drug as a means to prolong healthy life.
Together with already existing anti-aging drugs, scientists are developing new youth pills. So, in particular, a group of American research scientists announced the creation of senolytics - drugs of a new class that can slow down the aging process by improving cardiac function and destroying old cells in the body. The main target of the drug is cells that have stopped dividing. This drug selectively destroys old cells without affecting healthy and young ones. Moreover, tests have shown that even with a single dose of senolytics, cardiovascular function improves, osteoporosis symptoms decrease, endurance increases, and bone tissue strengthens.
The search for drugs for specific diseases caused by old age is also being widely conducted. In particular, such is bimagrumab, which is designed to prevent muscle loss. Upon completion of clinical trials, it is also planned to be used for symptoms of Alzheimer's disease and muscle atrophy. At the moment, a new drug is also being developed for the restoration of cartilage in the joints of the elderly and a drug for the treatment of heart failure. In addition, radical gene therapy is in the research phase to prevent the loss of cells in the ear canal, which play a major role in the sound sensing system, but are destroyed by chemotherapy and antibiotics.
Thus, if until recently the possibility of achieving physical immortality was the lot of amateurs from science and science fiction writers, now significant scientific breakthroughs and huge investments in this area have turned the extension of human life up to 150 years into a practical task, which, scientists are sure,, they will be able to within the next half century. Now the so-called immortality market is already actively developing, where you can buy a new generation of sensitive prostheses, artificially grown organs. Therefore, we can say that the pills of immortality have great chances in the near future to become a real leader in the struggle for a healthy and long human life.