How can technology and medicine help people prolong life?

One of the greatest achievements of the 20th century is that we have significantly improved life expectancy. Medical progress, improved living conditions, public health care campaigns and eradication of infectious diseases . have helped people to live longer and healthier as they get older.

Few people suspect that in 1900, the average life expectancy of the world only stopped at 31. By the middle of the century, an average person could only live until 48 years old. But so far, statistics from the World Health Organization (WHO) show: The average life expectancy of the world has exceeded 71 years old.

The question is, what will happen next?

Some people believe that the trend of increasing life expectancy will continue to grow rapidly, people will live up to 150, 200 and even 1,000 years old. However, a less optimistic study indicates that we are reaching the limit of life expectancy.

The challenge is still to have more people live longer and healthier, exceeding the limits of current medical technologies. It is always a fascinating topic for researchers, doctors and even startups.

Right now, there are many projects that promise to help people continue to improve their lifespan. Looking at it, we can know the future for the next 10 years. If human life will continue to be extended, how will that be done? We must thank those and for what?

Is there anything special in life-long studies?

Life-long research is almost entirely in the field of public health, meaning finding ways to prevent disease when it has not yet happened, while connecting existing patients with effective treatment Most effective, in the shortest time.

Most doctors and policy experts agree that this is a great potential area in medicine, which can help people extend their lifespan. Ironically, however, public health does not easily receive funding.

The reason why people take seriously that a patient has a disease and needs a new drug, rather than when a public health professional says that 500 people are healthy but can be infected, but may not.

If you are exposed to a lot of media, you may be interested in stories that some people may live up to 200 years of age. But in fact, the most interesting and practical studies, to continue to increase the average life expectancy of people, is to help those who should have lived only to be 50 years old, but can now go through their birthday. 70 of me.

Simple studies can save millions of lives

When some people think about longevity studies, they will imagine scenes like fictional movies: A machine that can edit human genes, a glass cage that contains people who hibernate or switch brain set to a machine .

But, did you know that trying to prolong life can be much simpler. One of them has been done since 1964, when the American General Doctor, Dr. Luther Terry, published a study proving that: Tobacco causes cancer.

During the following decades, tobacco, from a great image for the luxury man, became a cursed thing. It becomes a hot topic for every public policy and public awareness campaign. The whole world at that time limited smoking.

What is the result? 20 million people died before age 50 because of tobacco. But 8 million others have been saved. People who control their smoking habits have increased by an average of 20 years of life.

So far, there is still a long way we can make with cigarettes. But the past example is a testament to how strong human life can be increased.

The question now is: What are the major advances in human life longevity that will look like in the next 10 years? Nobody knows the future, but let's take a look at the most feasible scenarios:

If you want to extend life, think about changing lifestyles

If in the twentieth century, fighting against tobacco saved millions of lives, then in the 21st century, another lifestyle change effort can do the same.

Our goal is not to quit smoking, but to abstain from sugar.

Many studies show that sugar consumption is one of the most dangerous aspects of the diet. Sugar destroys the body, causes obesity, diabetes and shortens life expectancy. There are surprising parallels between the roads of the 21st century and cigarettes in the 20th century.

A new study published shows that the sugar industry bribed scientists to deceive us for five decades, obscuring the harmful effects of sugar consumption. This is exactly what the tobacco industry had done before to distract the harm from tobacco smoke.

Today, if someone decides to abstain from sugar, they will tend to live significantly longer, than those who still consume them regularly.

Major efforts to control the amount of sugar that people consume are already underway. Many countries have thought of taxing sugary drinks. Recently in the United States, all four cities have decided to tax fresh water.

Earlier, Philadelphia became the first city in the United States to levy fresh water. They received the first evidence that this decision could save many lives.

In all efforts to help people prolong life, the fight against the road will be the most promising front. The predictions that show our lives can last longer after the next five decades, if the fight against the road does the same thing as the fight against tobacco.

We will continue to eradicate dangerous infectious diseases

In the 20th century, the average life expectancy of people was extended thanks to a large part of efforts to fight dangerous diseases. The diseases, in the past, robbed the lives of millions of people every year, but either we controlled and reduced their destruction, or we completely wiped them out.

The two best examples are the success of public health campaigns and expanded immunization that completely eradicate smallpox and almost all polio. More recently, efforts by former US President Jimmy Carter's Carter Foundation have also helped us completely eradicate the second disease after smallpox, which is a parasitic infection.

In the 21st century, we were able to touch the death penalty with polio almost, but what bigger goal? That is eliminating malaria.

Human war with malaria has been going on for centuries and all over the world. In many areas, the parasite-carrying mosquito has been completely destroyed. Meanwhile, efforts to treat the disease continue to improve. As a result, at the beginning of the 21st century, the mortality rate due to malaria parasites has decreased by 60%.

Billionaire Bill Gates is sponsoring a malaria beating project in the hope that people will win them sooner. In addition, there are many bold projects and ideas that are also being implemented to target malaria elimination. One of these is the generation of genetically modified, infertile, or malaria-resistant mosquitoes and released into the environment. This will break the global malaria battle naturally and quietly.

If in the next 10 years, we continue to have a tendency to succeed in controlling malaria, it will be good news for the whole world.

Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan want to "cure all kinds of diseases"

Back in the 21st century and fantasy dreams, there are many people in Silicon Valley who are burning bold ideas. Billionaire Peter Thiel, for example, expressed great interest in companies working in the field of "parabiosis". Basically, parabiosis works on the idea of ​​transmitting young people's blood to the elderly, it can help them rejuvenate and prolong life.

However, the difference between Silicon Valley is that the people here are not just dreaming. If they had an idea, they would implement them through research grants or pursue technical technology solutions.

Last September, Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan pledged to spend $ 3 billion on a great plan. They want every disease to be cured at the end of the century, including cancer. If you want to compare, $ 3 billion will be only one-tenth of the amount that the US National Institutes of Health spend on annual research. But Mark is a person who knows how to use money in the right and creative way.

Instead of just pumping money into existing medical research, Mark and Chan rely on their funds to establish an investment system and awards for bold projects. They will also fund harmonic projects, high-risk projects, basic science projects and connect doctors and engineers.

Mark and Chan's goal is not to improve existing medical methods and medicines, they want to create a whole new environment in the way people fight disease. If that comes true, we must redefine every direction of modern medicine.

That will be a bigger story. It's not just about finding ways to fight the disease once it has happened, medical research will have to focus more and more on the origin of the disease. The ultimate goal will be to help us live longer, healthier and safer.

Technology will detect disease right from the onset

In his statement, Mark and Chan showed their special interest in the idea of ​​active blood surveillance. That is, developing technology, for example through a patch or implant, can allow us to monitor blood quality automatically, regularly and accurately throughout our lives.

This will allow detection of infection or even cancer at the time of its onset. And so, all diseases can be treated more easily.

Although very promising, active blood monitoring will have to address relatively large challenges.

First of all, we all know disease is latent, if a large number of positive results appear at a time, it will confuse the patient and put a great pressure on the health care system. Therefore, an active blood monitoring device must achieve super precision, if it wants to be applied in the market.

Second, high technology, simple and accurate never comes at a reasonable price, especially at its starting point. We have developed cheap, simple and pain-free testing devices, but not all of them work well.

However, when it comes to technologies that help us extend life, active blood monitoring will still be a very potential idea in the near future.

We are in the midst of an explosion of genetic editing technology

Many factors that make our lives cannot last longer are in the genetic nature. There is growing evidence that changes in gene structure are one of the things that promote aging.

To open the way to intervene in this process, we have a quite effective, even cheap, tool: CRISPR-Cas9 . This genetic modification technique is considered to be revolutionizing biology. Just last week, Chinese researchers have for the first time published a successful CRISPR test on humans.

That must have been a big step forward, opening a bright decade ahead. CRISPR can be used to prolong the lives of people severely affected by mutated genes. However, we can still doubt that 10 years is still too short for a genetically modified technology to appear massively.

Even startup companies want to extend life for people

Unity Biotechnology is a bold startup company in the field of biotechnology. With a head start of over $ 100 million, they are aiming to help older people live healthier lives.

How does it work? We know that the cells in the body have an emergency mechanism. It will stop all its activities, once worked to exhaustion.

This is essentially a self-defense mechanism of the body. Because when working too much, the cell faces genetic damage and accumulated gene mutations over time. Non-stop and continue to divide, it will create a disease in the body, because mutations can spread everywhere.

As a result, mutations will increase your risk of cancer. Therefore, the cell must stop working and divide. They are called aging cells and appear more and more when you get older.

But Unity Biotechnology did experiments on mice and found that, sometimes, cells stopped working too soon. They believe that most aging cells can be extended to serve time while ensuring that they are healthy and do not damage the body.

What does that mean? It's not really about longevity, but Unity Biotechnology wants every elderly to be younger and healthier once their cells aren't aging. The company has published very promising studies in previous animals. Expected, they will perform human trials next year.