X-Message-Number: 15600
From: "Mark Plus" <>
Subject: "Not built for the ages"
Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2001 18:54:19 -0800

From:

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/010219/evolve.htm

Science & Ideas 2/19/01

Not built for the ages
We might not want to be 150 years old

By Emily Sohn

The human body is like an overgrown windup toy. It starts out with great 
exuberance but inevitably peters out. Recently scientists have speculated 
that the body's muscles, nerves, and plumbing might be engineered to keep 
chugging much longer 150 years or more. But at least one expert on aging 
disagrees. The basic anatomy, he argues, just isn't designed for longevity.

Yet there's a silver lining to being somewhat short-lived, says Jay 
Olshansky, a biodemographer at the University of Illinois-Chicago's School 
of Public Health. Longevity, he contends, wouldn't be pretty at least by our 
current cultural standards. A "built-to-last" human would be short, stocky, 
and tilted forward all to make bone loss and fractures less likely. Extra 
ribs, to prevent hernias, would add girth. Backward-bending knees would 
reduce friction in the joints, but would make it hard to stand still. 
Swiveling, oversize ears (to catch more sound) might be attractive in the 
future, but for now they're still Star Trek oddities. Ditto the squidlike 
eyes, which are less prone to vision loss.

Other changes would be less visible, but equally iffy. Restructuring the 
throat would prevent choking but make conversation a challenge. Moving the 
male prostate gland slightly to the side of the bladder would prevent the 
enlargement that affects 1 in every 2 older men. Strengthening the muscles 
controlling the female bladder would relieve incontinence but could cause 
other unexpected problems.

But accepting our bodies' built-in design flaws could also be comforting to 
people who blame themselves for health problems later in life, says Richard 
Rog-ers, a sociologist at the University of Colorado-Boulder. "People can 
say, 'Hey, I'm lucky to be 100. If incontinence is the only problem I've 
got, then I'm in good shape.' "

Body shop. The inevitability of aging is no reason to give up on eating well 
and exercising, Olshansky says. Until human body shops are equipped to 
redesign people for longevity, a healthful lifestyle can do a lot to enhance 
life's richness, if not its length. And that doesn't mean with drugs or 
dietary supplements. "Everything we're doing now is a treatment for an 
existing or potential disease," says Olshansky. "It is not modifying the 
aging process itself, and it is not modifying the basic body plan that all 
of us inherited from our ancestors."

To actually extend life spans, scientists will have to figure out how to get 
at the genes that control how fast we age. That is a long way off.


For now, perhaps folk singer Michelle Shocked has the best advice: "The 
secret to a long life's knowing when it's time to go."

_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=15600