Aging Process: How Can You Slow It and Reduce Risk of Related Illnesses

While the average life expectancy has increased significantly over the past 100 years, humanity should not settle for just living a bit longer, says Olga Tkachyova, chief consultant geriatrician of the Russian Ministry of Health and corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Life expectancy in Russia has been on the rise since 2003 and has already reached 73.4 years today, she noted.

“But we should not focus on simply increasing life expectancy. We must strive to increase the length of active, healthy life devoid of age-related illnesses,” she said. “Today in Russia the length of this period of life approaches 62 years and our goal is to increase it to at least 67 years.”

“People should live for a hundred years and not suffer from age-related illnesses by the time of their death,” Tkachyova stated.

The improvement of the overall quality of life – better food, better living and working conditions, better and more available healthcare – in the recent past gave a tremendous boost to life expectancy, and the time is nigh for humanity to start “managing the processes of aging,” Tkachyova suggested.

“We are also witnessing another tendency: while life expectancy is increasing nonstop, the maximum life span – which currently stands at 122 years – does not,” she added. “Perhaps in order to achieve a breakthrough in this field and increase the maximum life span we need to develop the technologies of gene-engineering therapy and regenerative medicine.”

What is Known About Aging?

While there are about 300 “theories of aging”, all of them can be divided into two large groups, Tkachyova explained.

The first group postulates that aging is a “preprogrammed process” – it is inevitable, the only question is how fast this process progresses and how people can influence it.

According to the second group of theories, aging is essentially the result of “errors” – which occur in human body cells all the time, during protein synthesis, DNA replication, etc. – gradually accumulating.

“On one hand, the aging process is preprogrammed in the human organism, but we can influence it,” Tkachyova mused. “On the other hand, if those ‘errors’ in the human body accumulate then the aging process accelerates.”

So far, twelve “mechanisms of aging” have been discovered and confirmed, with two more such possible mechanisms being investigated, she noted. Research into the process of aging involves studying people from various age groups and tracking how aging progresses in each case, including people who age early and those who live very long.

“There are many theories, and the mechanisms of aging are being actively researched. Problem is, such mechanisms have been studied during experiments on cell cultures, but there are not many studies related to translating knowledge from laboratories to clinical medicine,” said Tkachyova.

She also noted that the speed of aging is determined not only by a person’s health in their later years but also by how they live since birth. One theory even suggests that the speed of one’s aging may be determined during the fetal stage.

How Can Ageing Be Affected

Methods through which the aging process can be influenced are various and many of them have nothing to do with medication, Tkachyova explained.

“There is physical activity – so far nothing better has been invented for prolonging a healthy life,” she said. “There is a protein called myostanin that blocks the replication of muscle cells. If we block it, a person’s muscles won’t atrophy, and he or she won’t grow frail and will be able to stay young and active for longer.

One would think that we have a target to influence. But today we cannot block this protein with any kind of medication. But we can affect it via physical exercise. If a person is physically active then age-related atrophy of muscle tissues progresses slower.”

What one eats and how much one eats also affects aging, Tkachyova noted, pointing out that long-living people never overeat, and that there are special diets and types of food that help slow down aging.

“Often we eat things that not only give us energy but also pollute the body,” she remarked, adding that one’s body sometimes simply cannot handle the sheer amount of food that needs to be processed and excreted.

“Thirdly, there is cognitive activity. It is well known that the higher one’s education is, the longer he or she lives. This is why there are so many long-living persons among scientists,” Tkachyova claimed.

She also suggested that perhaps the aging of the brain may be the key issue in the aging process as a whole, seeing how the brain regulates the activity of all other organs and systems that comprise the human body.

There are various medications for treating cardiovascular diseases, which have additional geroprotective effects.

“So far, however, there are no medications labeled ‘recommended for slowing the aging process’,” Tkachyova warned. “Such research is being conducted and, in some cases, has even progressed to clinical trials. But no medicine for slowing the aging process has been made yet.”

Finally, it seems that remaining optimistic and finding joy in your life may also help you live longer, with Tkachyova citing examples of long-living people who apparently lived that long in no small part due to doing things that gave them positive emotions, like dancing.

“Positive emotions have a colossal effect on longevity,” Tkachova said, arguing that people often overlook the importance of “positive emotions.”

What Compounds Age-Related Research

The main problem with researching means of slowing and perhaps even reversing the aging process is the fact that in order to confirm that some medication does slow down aging, it requires either monitoring the test subject/s their whole life or using “biological age calculators” that aren’t fully developed yet, Tkachyova said.

She noted that genetic engineering and regenerative medicine may help deal with aging – for example, via transplantation of lab-grown human organs that could be used to replace the damaged or worn-out, aged tissues. Tkachyova also postulated that in this day and age, it is important for people to understand what exactly is happening to their bodies, for doctors to explain to their patients why exactly this or that regimen or medication was prescribed.

“When it comes to aging, a person must consciously affect their own longevity and understand exactly what they are doing,” she said.

That said, children who are being born today, with the current level of scientific advancement and healthcare, have a 50-percent chance to live up to 100 years, Tkachyova remarked.

“By the time they turn 60, they will have 40 more years – nearly half of their life,” she says, arguing that we should strive to make it so that they could, even at that advanced age, “be useful to society and to their families, and to enjoy their long lives.”