Stopping Aging Researchers will find long life

Researchers are on the trail of the mystery of aging

According to experts, average life expectancy in Western industrialized countries will soon exceed 90 years. In other countries too, people today live significantly longer than a few decades ago. But can life expectancy continue to increase and possibly even slow down aging? German researchers are trying to find answers.

Humans are getting older

German life expectancy has reached record levels in recent years and will continue to rise. Every fourth girl born today will be over 100 years old. In other countries too, people are getting older on average. Some scientists even mean that human life expectancy can be increased tenfold. Others speculate that at some point the biological clock may be outsmarted and that common age-related diseases such as dementia, Parkinson's disease, cancer, or cardiovascular disease will become invincible in the future.

Not only in Germany, life expectancy has increased significantly for decades. Maybe the biological clock can someday be outsmarted. To find out, researchers are studying mitochondria, which play a key role in aging. (Image: olly / fotolia.com)

Mitochondria play a key role in aging

"All human beings age - as do almost all other living organisms. One reason for this is that in every cell the genetic material DNA is damaged more and more over time, "says the website of the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Aging.

Scientists at the institute are researching "how cells age over the course of their lives, which genes are involved and what role environmental factors play."

The news agency dpa reports that researchers are investigating mitochondria. The thousandths of a millimeter-thin structures, which are also called power plants of the cells, play a central role in aging according to the new MPI director Thomas Langer.

In the agency message, he explains his mission: "That we better understand aging at the biological and molecular level, and that we can better treat age-related diseases in the medium term."

According to the biologist, it is clear that with increasing age the "mitos" lose their efficiency and that this has harmful consequences.

Now it is time to investigate how these damages in the cell components can be prevented - with possibly life-prolonging effect.

Significant change in life span

"In model organisms, a manipulation of individual cellular processes can significantly change the lifespan," the expert told dpa.

Model organisms such as roundworm, fruit fly or mouse therefore last much longer under certain conditions tested.

These animals are particularly well suited for the investigations, "because their genes are known and they have a relatively short life expectancy," it says on the website of the institute.

Massive life extension through medical advancement

Above all, the medical progress of the past 100 years has contributed to a massive life extension.

According to the Federal Statistical Office, about 4.9 million people in Germany are at least 80 years old, by 2050 it should be almost ten million.

Nevertheless, according to an investigation by the mathematician Hansjörg Walther, there is no need to worry about an aging society.

As the expert said dpa, there are "very promising studies, in which one could achieve life extensions in mice, but only in a model experiment."

Although he still sees "a lot of potential" here, at the present time it would be "not right to say that we could apply this to humans in the foreseeable future."

Walther does not want to engage in speculation about a maximum attainable age, but he certainly does not think "that we have reached an endpoint in terms of life span."

Quality of life of greater importance

According to the medical ethicist Christiane Woopen, the quality of life "at least at a certain age is more significant than the length of life."

As the chair of the European Ethics Council (EGE) said, science and medicine are about avoiding severe physical and mental suffering. An extension of life is not the primary goal.

"In the face of human nature, which apart from autonomy and creative power is also characterized by vulnerability, limitedness and dependence, I do not believe in the possibility of an immortality on this earth," according to the expert dpa.

But she also made it clear: "We have to think about the social consequences and the conditions of our coexistence when people can get older and older."

According to Woopen, the current structure of the life courses is absurd: "The first decades are a single race track to land breathlessly for decades on the side lane after the end of employment," said the medical ethicist. (Ad)