Anti-aging is here. Yes, you read that right, the ability to reverse aging is here. But why didn't you hear about it if it's true? You may have, if you read about it in news publications like CNN on Jan 13, 2023. This monumental advancement in biological science was announced by Dr. David Sinclair.
To be sure, this was not an overnight discovery, but achieved through decades of careful study of aging in many different living things. If you were keeping track of news about aging research over the past decade, you would have realized that the ability to reverse aging was not a matter of if it will happen, but when.
Most people of course haven't taken notice of this anti-aging breakthrough by Dr. Sinclair, mainly because this discovery didn't directly affect them. At first. This is not unlike AI research, which has made steady progress over the past couple decades, but didn't grab the attention of people until ChatGPT was released to the general public November 30, 2022. Then all hell broke loose.
This pattern of scientific discovery and realization by the general public is happening with anti-aging science as well.
It's important to note that this discovery of reversing aging by Dr. Sinclair was announced for mice, not humans. There have been many discoveries of drugs that have been shown to work great in mice, but not in humans. So this amazing discovery needs to be replicated in humans before you and I will be getting an FDA approved anti-aging treatment. However, I feel that the mechanisms behind this anti-aging treatment is quite unlike trying to find one of an infinite types of drugs to treat an infinite types of ailments. This is a matter of figuring out the singular underlying cause of aging and coming up with a way to control it. Once that mechanism of aging and treating it is figured out, it's game over.
Listening to Dr. Sinclair speak optimistically about this and actually driving aging backwards and forwards in mice gives me confidence this is it. At this time there are now studies in higher level mammals to test Dr. Sinclair's anti-aging treatment, after which if successful will be tested in humans. If successful in humans and given approval by the FDA, then it'll be released to the public. How long will this take? Dr. Sinclair is optimistic this will happen within his lifetime. He's 53 as of 2023.
This eventual treatment of aging, whether it's from Dr. Sinclair or someone else could happen within a couple years or a couple decades. It's extremely hard to come up with an actual date until successful human testing has been completed. Another question is how well will this treatment work? Does it reverse aging for just a year, several years, decades? Dr. Sinclair has mentioned that his treatment reversed aging to between 50% and 75% of the original age. Reversing the age of a 70 year old to age 35-52 is a pretty good start as far as I'm concerned.
However, it will soon become apparent that eliminating the problems of aging will seem trivial compared to the whole new set of problems it will bring. Is mankind ready? An imaginative peek into this future is explored in the 2011 movie, In Time, starring Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried and Cillian Murphy.
Next Blog: In Time (2011) movie review
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