Maintaining youth and postponing aging in the real world

Ülo KristjuhanTallinn University of Technology

Contact: ylokris@tv.ttu.ee

Many people think

• that average life expectancy 70-80 years is good, and

• increasing the life expectancy is prolonging the last years of life, the years of infirmity.

As a result, interest in postponing aging is low in the world: financing aging research is ca 100 times less than financing help to older people

Why should we prolong years of health and our lives?

People want to be more years young

Everyday people prolong their lives

People don’t like aging and death

Life is worth living!

Probably there is nothing after death

Aging processes are studied on the level of cells, organs, systems, and on the level of the organism.

• Aging on the level of the organism (organismal aging) is the accumulation of damage on the level of the organism during his life increasing the possibility of death.

• The possibility of death is a quantitative measure about aging processes on the level of the organism.

• Aging velocity on the level of the organism is increasing probability of dying in some period of time e.g. during one year.

• Youth maintenance is an activity that decreases aging velocity

•Most people draw conclusions about aging velocity on the basis of face skin

• Every year ca 100 million people die in the world.

• We can save one million lives every year increasing life expectancy by only one per cent !!

• Much more than one per cent is real!

• There is not a border line between aging and age-related diseases

Opinions that to postpone human aging is impossible are widespread among

biologists who see difficulties of human studies biologists who have not carried out human aging studiespeople who are ignorantpeople who think that aging depends mostly on genes

Genetic Heritability of Human LifespanCournil & Kirkwood 2001

Twin Studies• McGue et al (1993) 0.22• Herskind et al (1996) 0.25• Ljungquist et al (1998) <0.33

Traditional Family Studies• Philippe (1978) 0-0.24• Bocquet-Appel & Jakobi (1990) 0.10-0.30• Mayer (1990) 0.10-0.33• Gavrilova et al (1998) 0.18-0.58• Cournil et al (2000) 0.27

Genes account for 25% of what determines longevity

There are health determinants (decreasing and increasing risk to health) which:• influence is well-known,• influence has been studied superficially, • influence is practically not studied. The number of these is the biggest.

Field studies have shown that via a favourable complex of health determinants (elements of lifestyle, activity, food composition, etc.) typical age-related changes postpone up to 20 years.

Machine engineering 71.1

Medicine 68.8

Biology 68.5

Chemistry 66.0

Physics 64.4

Luria, S.M. Average age of death of scientists in various specialities. Public Health Reports, 1969, 81, 7, 661-664

• Aging is very individual phenomenon.

• Its velocity is different among different subjects.

• Its velocity sometimes increases, sometimes decreases.

In the future, chemicals will be very important.

Chemicals are discussed widely in the scientific literature. Some of them (aspirin) postpone aging, but mostly their influence needs more detail study.

The chemicals should used individually.

There will be no limit to life expectancy.

In the future probably the main solution is the pill

A widespread strategy in postponing aging is studying and taking into account weak sensations of discomfort in the various regions of the human body to avoid their developing into intensive symptoms and disorders.

These sensations are very different modality, pain, stress, etc.

Most people, if possible, try to avoid them.

At present the most important are psychological factors. E.g. according Levy et al. (2002) positive self-perceptions of aging increase life expectancy by 7.5 years.

Factually, most recommendations are the same which were 1000 years ago. Conflicts between people and aggressive behaviour are common in everyday life.

The maintenance of a daily work schedule and avoiding stress are very important

National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington recommended safe minimum daily amount is about 500 milligrams of sodium with an upper limit of 2,400 milligrams.

Factually this amount is 4000 mg in most countries

If to consider complex factors, very important are economical factors: the lowest income group in the country has often 15-20 years lower life expectancy compared high income groups

Financial Times, Thursday, April 13, 2006 Andrew Taylor. The rise of the older workerMore than half the [UK] jobs created in the past year were filled by people above the state pension age, according to official statistics.

Kristjuhan, Ü. (2008). Home for promoting health and postponing aging changes.

In: Ways of Residing in Trans-Disciplinary Focus: CIB W69 Housing Sociology Meeting, Tallinn, 13-15 June 2008. Tallinn: 2008.

Kristjuhan, Ü. Computer as a tool in postponing aging. First Central European International Multimedia and Virtual Reality Conference. 2004, Veszprém, Veszprém University Press, 204. P. 95-100.

Analogical reasoning

Morphological analysis

Systems analysis

Modelling

Extrapolation

Concepts and definitions used

Harmony between hypotheses, theories, facts; elucidation of gaps, contradictions and differences, possibilities of their elimination

Aims of problem solving

Possible structures of the problem

Methods used

Analogical reasoning

Morphological analysis

Systems analysis

Modelling

Extrapolation

Concepts and definitions used

Harmony between hypotheses, theories, facts; elucidation of gaps, contradictions and differences, possibilities of their elimination

Aims of problem solving

Possible structures of the problem

Methods used

60-70-years old workers, are they productive?

Published articles by different age groups

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Defended MSc theses, teachers’ instruction efficiency by their different age groups

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Who has the highest earnings during 2007, 11 000 000 000 USD?

Carlos Slim Helú (68)

How many years of youthful condition a person can win?

• It is impossible exactly to say. • Indirect assessments of recommended measures are important.

Contemporary airlines are the safest kind of transport. Flying safety has not developed using experimental and control groups of air passengers and counting victims.

At present local rejuvenation is possible in humans. But rejuvenation research is developing and ….

Can Europeans soon have average life expectancy 200 years – this depends on our interest in this, on investments in this research

Thank you for your

attention!