Since about 1900, when the average lifespan for U.S. citizens was somewhere around 50, we’ve been pushing that boundary ever upward. Today, depending on exactly where you live and other factors like cigarettes and French fries, you can expect to hang on into your eighties and beyond. That’s fine with most of us, especially if our brains stay functional too – and therein lies the problem.
There is reason to believe, if neurological studies on worms prove out, that humans could live to be 300 with a little genetic tinkering. If you sign up for this, a possibility predicted by University of California San Francisco neuroscientist Dena Dubal, you might want to have Dr. Dubal and her colleagues nearby for your brain care.
At a recent luncheon in San Francisco, Dr. Dubal and fellow UCSF research scientist Wade Smith talked of the work going on in their labs as if it were simply what they do for a living. To a spellbound audience, however, it sounded more like miracle-making. “Just a little genetic tinkering.” Altering the aging process, staving off dementia… it’s all in a day’s work. A little extra Clotho (so designated for the anti-aging Greek goddess of the same name) blocked memory loss in mice, Dr. Dubal said; it’s reasonable to project that similar treatment might some day be made available to mammals.
This reporter came home, followed a few of those links and was quickly lost, which is attributable — in part, at least, we hope — not to short-term memory loss but to my degrees in Art and Short Fiction vs the very long list of degrees plus other academic and scientific credentials of Drs. Dubal and Wade.
For those of us already worried about the relentless increase in dementia among the 65+ population, the possibility of living to be 300 is not altogether good news. But fortunately our brains are the concern of the brains at UCSF.
