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  • Some of the oldest people alive today drink a glass of wine or eating two strips of bacon

  • every morning. Which doesn’t sound half bad.. but how can we really live longer?

  • Hey everyone! Julia here for DNews

  • While genes are a big factor into living longer, genetics only make up 30% of the story. The

  • rest seems up to us. Life expectancy at birth in the U.S. has been rising for all groups

  • at rate of about .6 years a year. People born in the last five years could reasonably expect

  • to live into their late 70s even early 80s. At this rate, it seems like we could live

  • until 100 soon! Well, not quite yet.

  • Most researchers thought that living longer meant more time doing what you love. The assumption

  • just went without saying. However recent research showed otherwise. Scientists at University

  • of Massachusetts Medical School extended the life of roundworm by playing with four different

  • mechanisms. No matter what mutations they had, the worms lived longer, but they spent

  • a greater percentage of their live in a frail state. BUMMER DUDE.

  • As we extend our lifespans with modern medicine, age related diseases like Alzheimer's and

  • certain cancers are on the rise. We seem to be extending the amount of time we spend in

  • suffering. To spend more time healthy, that’s going to take some heavy scientific lifting.

  • Researchers from UCLA showed that by turning on a single gene they could extend life by

  • 30%. AMP-activated protein kinase helps get rid of cellular garbage by promoting autophagy,

  • or destroying sick or damaged cells. The story goes that over time our cells get damaged

  • as we age and it’s the build up of these damaged cells that lead to age related illnesses.

  • The enzyme helps the body clean up all these damaged cells. The researchers found that

  • flies who had this gene activated lived up to 30% longer and were healthier during their

  • later days. Yet note that I said flies, this hasn’t been proved in mammals yet.

  • Another way to boost your lifespan? Caloric Restriction. For some reason rats who are

  • fed shockingly low number of calories, live up to 40% longer than their peers. Scientists

  • think a lack of glucose is responsible. Glucose occasionally binds to some of our DNA, proteins

  • and lipids, and stops them from doing their jobs causing some disease. A restricted diet

  • might prevent some of this process. But there’s no evidence this works in humans and it’s

  • not recommended, for obvious reasons.

  • Rather than starving yourself, could you pop a pill? One FDA approved drug, Rapamycin,

  • already extends the lifespan and healthspan in mice by 30%. But unfortunately it’s designed

  • as an immunosuppressant. Knocking out your immune system could be a pretty heavy price

  • to pay for a chance at a longer life. Yet recent research is working on blocking the

  • immunosuppressant qualities.

  • And you can’t talk about immortality without talking about telomeres. Telomeres are like

  • the plastic tips on your shoelaces, but for your DNA. Everytime DNA makes a copy of itself,

  • the telomeres get shorter. If they weren’t there at all, your DNA would fray like a shoelace

  • and cause age-related diseases. So what would happen if we could stop telomere shortening?

  • Most of these possibilities only seem to extend lifespan 10-30 years, which is not forever.

  • But hey, I’ll take it. Geneticist Richard Cawthon thinks if we could get rid of all

  • aging processes and repair cellular damage, humans could live up to 1,000 years.

  • The question is - would you want to?

  • What do you think? let us know in the comments and keep coming back here for more DNews every

  • day of the week!

Some of the oldest people alive today drink a glass of wine or eating two strips of bacon

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B1 中級

我們能長生不老嗎? (Can We Live Forever?)

  • 191 15
    Cheng-Hong Liu 發佈於 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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