Abstract
The title of this chapter expresses well not only its main idea, but also formulates one of the key ideas of the whole book. Grinin et al. give many arguments in favor of these ideas, and in the last paragraph of this chapter they summarize them. The authors believe that medicine of the future will be cardinally new kind of medicine because of anti-aging technologies, that is, technologies for slowing down and ennobling aging, as well as stop** and alleviating the problems associated with it. All this will become an integral part of the future of medicine; perhaps even reforming whole system of medicine. This will also mean that more and more attention will be focused on the treatment of age-associated diseases, on the cure or mitigating of the so-called geriatric syndromes (or age-related conditions). The perception of aging in society will also change. Thus, the changing focus of medicine on the problems of aging together with innovations in anti-aging technologies will imply a medical adaptation to aging. The latter will develop gradually up to the late twenty-first century and become an essential part of the common process that Grinin et al. have called adaptation to aging.
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Notes
- 1.
Aging in general is not typical of a wild animal community, since under natural conditions animals are more likely to die before reaching old age. However, it is characteristic that somewhat similar processes are observed among captive animals (Finch et al., 1990; Ricklefs, 2000). Animals, that are protected from the usual causes of earlier death, age and have an increase in diseases of old age.
- 2.
- 3.
It is widely accepted that the regulation of these pathways is the major way how the diet influences health and longevity (Pertseva, 2016).
- 4.
Interestingly, bacteria with circular DNA have no telomeres at all, but also no free DNA ends. Perhaps that is why they are capable of living almost for ever. On the other hand, their ability to constantly divide does not have fatal consequences.
- 5.
Here is an interesting example of such a system. Scientists at the Rochester Clinical College, led by Jan van Dursen, have succeeded in creating a genetically modified mouse whose diet contains a special substance that kills all senescent cells. By regularly clearing the animal's body of senescent cells, it became possible to slow down the emergence of such age-related pathologies like the loss of fat and muscle tissue, the development of cataracts (Moskalev, 2018). More about senescent cells see below.
- 6.
- 7.
Rapamycin is produced by bacteria that were found on Easter Island. They produce it to suppress the growth of fungi. As a result, the fungi stop multiplying and growing, but they start to live longer. In other words, they slow down their aging. About the possible role of rapamycin in life extension see Stipp, 2012; Gifford, 2015.
- 8.
The hyaluronic acid molecule has a short and a long form. The short form is used for cosmetic purposes. However, it causes inflammation. And the long form, which the naked mole rat has, on the contrary, has anti-inflammatory and, possibly, anti-cancer effect, because it reduces the ability of the cells responsible for inflammation to divide. But its molecules are too big and therefore cannot pass through cell membranes.
- 9.
Senescent cells are cells that accumulate in the body with aging, send false signals that accelerate the aging process and actively destroy the surrounding tissue, cause chronic inflammation and stimulate the formation of tumors. Several laboratories around the world are currently develo** methods to remove senescent cells from the human body.
- 10.
Note that such unevenness in processes, and especially in longevity, is an important rule of natural evolution, which manifests itself almost everywhere. For example, the life spans of stars vary widely from tens of millions of years in giants to a few trillions of years in dwarfs. The lifespan definitely depends on the mass of the star, but even within similar sizes it varies greatly (Grinin, 2013).
- 11.
The difference between centenarians and super-centenarians is similar to that between normal people and centenarians. It is known that the chances of people who have reached the age of one hundred to become super-centenarians (i.e., to live at least another ten years) are only two in a thousand.
- 12.
If by that time aging is recognized as a disease (see below), then medicine will all the more focus on the treatment of aging and related diseases and deformities.
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This chapter has been prepared with support by the Russian Science Foundation (Project No. 23-11-00160).
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Grinin, L., Grinin, A., Korotayev, A. (2024). Anti-aging as a Key Challenge for the Medicine of the Future. In: Cybernetic Revolution and Global Aging. World-Systems Evolution and Global Futures. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-56764-3_11
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