Californian scientists have created genetically modified organisms that can live 10 times longer than it should be. It is the greatest extension of the life that has been achieved to date, the researchers investigate the mechanisms of aging. If you succeed always, use this method to humans, then one day they can grow up to 800 years old. But if this is realistic? Valter Longo - one of a small but influential group of specialists in the field, that life is 800 years to believe not only possible, but inevitable. It was his work at the University of Southern California led to the creation of a strain of yeast fungus that can live for 10 weeks or longer, during normal fungus lives maximum weekly working time. Deletion from the genome of the fungus, two genes and place it on a low calorie diet Longo was able to extend use to ten times the life of the most common yeast cells by bakers and brewers. The results will be published this week in the journal Public Library of Science Genetics. Of course, the difference between a yeast cell and a man is huge, but that has stopped Longo and his colleagues say that their respective investigations with the problem of aging and longevity in humans. "We are laying the foundation for reprogramming the body to a healthy life if we can figure out how the longevity mechanism works, it's for all the cells of every living organism can be applied." - Says Longo. "We are very, very far from it, to extend the human life to 800 years - adds Longo -. I do not think it will be difficult to extend the life up to 120, while maintaining good health, but at a some point, I think it will be possible to prolong the years of people's lives to 800 I do not believe that for every organism there is an upper limit to the duration of life "Most of Gerontology -. Researchers who are engaged in the science of aging - such statements seem almost heresy established in this area believe that the maximum life span a person less than 125 years, Jeanne .. Kalman, the oldest person in the world with a documented age died, 122 years 164 days. According to orthodox views about aging, it is one of the lucky few that limit for the duration of managed to achieve human life was keeping most gerontologists, "centrists" on the idea that life one day people will be able for centuries -. or even thousands of years, as proposed by a scientist nonkomformist - best expressed Robin Holliday, a noted British gerontologist, in his new book "Aging: the paradox of life." "How can you do such statements? - Asks Holliday. - The first condition - ignore the huge body of published studies of the aging process. Second - the huge amount of information about the study of human disease by age-related changes in other words caused ignore, ignore the mass of well-established textbooks on human pathology. Third, we assume that in the future technology will be on stem cells and other technologies and replace (or) repair of the sensitive parts of the body. So the new "bionic" is to avoid getting aging. "Like many other experts in the science of aging, Holliday with deep skepticism accepts the idea that the aging process can outsmart somehow so that people extend the life for decades or even centuries." All movement against aging is not only turns into science fiction, but the arrogance is astounding, "- says Holliday. According to him, a huge amount of information known biomedicine suggests that death at the age of about 125 years is inevitable. However, according to Valter Longo experiments with yeast, which can live for more than 10 weeks. "We have extended the lives of ten times and this, I believe, the longest expansion ever reached on the material of every living organism", - he said. Removal of two genes - RAS2 and SCH9 that promote aging, yeast and cancer in humans, as well as placement of the fungus on caloric restriction extends life Longo on a scale that is theoretically impossible. As said Anna McCormick, head of the Department of Genetics and Cell Biology at the U.S. National Institute on Aging: "I would say that a tenfold increase - is very solid." At the moment, reducing the number of calories is an accepted way to extend the life of many creatures, from yeast and nematodes, fruit flies and mice. However, while not precisely determined whether caloric restriction extend to human life, although a high-calorie diet increased in any case the risk of obesity, diabetes and other diseases and syndromes, reduced life expectancy. Biologists believe that restricting calories causes are many animals in a state corresponding to under normal conditions. On the brink of starvation Instead of wasting precious energy reserves on reproduction, animal disable all functions of the body, except for the fundamental. Hoping that sometime in the future will improve the situation and successful reproduction This view corresponds to a generalized notion that animals tend to choose one of two life strategies - either high fertility with a short life expectancy or longevity and low reproductive potential combined. For example, a mouse directed much of their limited resources to multiply, bringing offspring a few times a year, but short-lived - only two years. But the bats, which are about the same size beget another, or at most two boys a year and can live for 30 years or even longer. Why are animals of a species live longer than animals of a different species, with comparable values of the body? Why do some animals seem to age rapidly and die at a young age? Science and technology for several decades detail work on these issues, experts say. As seen in mice and bats prolong life genes can do. In this case, the question arises: why did not they do it more often, or even all the time? Therefore logically follows, on the other: Why do we age? Why do not we live forever? One of the most convincing answer to this question is known as the "discard theory of soma." In short, it looks like this: genes can extend the life of the body, but only if the balance between costs and benefits of such longevity. Whenever possible repair mechanisms of the body that contribute to and worsen day by day, but there comes a time when the game is no longer worth the effort: the costs are prohibitively expensive, as in the case of repair decrepit car. Discard when no longer be repaired - from that point on "Soma" - body. But from the perspective of the gene, it does not matter unless "escape" to the gene made out of the broken body and multiply in the younger, healthy body to the next generation. Longo says that the soma theory of Professor Tom Kirkwood of Newcastle University in the late 1970s proposed disposal - is one of the most convincing explanation for the moment, the nature of aging. However, Longo has another theory, because of which the second group of scientists are almost tearing his hair. He believes that aging - it can not only developed a side effect of wearing the body throughout life, but also genetically programmed state to eliminate the older members of the population to make room for the young. Tempting idea, although it is believed that 40 years ago there an evolutionary biologist George Williams and John Maynard Smith denied. Among the people who are not scientists, widespread assumption that aging and death to make way for the next generation to be called, and then aging is a genetic program, polished natural selection. This thesis also shows that aging is an altruistic act for the benefit of future generations. Evolutionary biologists know that this view is based on the idea of "group selection", which is mathematically impossible, since it would always pick selfish mutants. For example, individuals who are carriers of the altruistic genes for premature aging, and death defenseless decide to stand against the wiles of carriers selfish genes, which take advantage of the situation for themselves and their descendants. "Carriers selfish" enough to live a little longer than. The members of their group, thereby ensuring the exploitation of resources that remained after the premature death of their peers But Longo is convinced that his experiments suggest the modification of yeast genes that aging - focused not just a side effect of life, but, genetically programmed process, refined by natural selection. "In fact, this is the first known visual evidence that aging is programmed and altruistic - says Longo -. Organisms that we die before learning the deadline to supply them with food," mutants "is produced in the area of their own population. shall die billions of organisms can grow more towers early on the lives of individuals to be adjusted. "This leads to the assumption that the same thing happened to people, so many people to die earlier than necessary. "Programmed human aging - this is only a hypothesis, we do not know how much it is true -. Reflects Longo -. But if the yeast aging is programmed and metabolic mechanism is very similar to human, it is not possible that people also die first? ". Valter Longo said that while no one has the illegality of his theory of programmed cell death detected. But perhaps this is heresy was the last straw the rest of the world of science. Stories about longevity: Old people in the world Joan Kalman's mother lived, father and brother of Joan Kalman, old respectively with 86, 93 and 97 years. But no one has surpassed Jeanne, who died in 1997 at the age of 122 years and 164 days. She was born in 1875, at age 14, met with Vincent Van Gogh, and in 1885 was present at the funeral of Victor Hugo. Sigetie Izumi is a master not only on longevity among men of all time, but also on the length of professional experience. He lived on the island of Tokunoshima in Japan and engaged in farm work. He worked from childhood and up to 105 years - that is, his work experience is 98 years. He had hooked a weakness for Shoji (barley vodka) and in 70 years of smoking, but lived over 120 years old. He died in 1986. Edna Parker Parker, 114-year old native of Indiana, now outlived all his children, but in their family 13 great-grandchildren. She is now recognized as the oldest living person in the world now. She grew up on a farm. Parker lives in a nursing home. She goes alone, loves to read and recite poetry. Charlotte Hughes, a retired teacher, was the oldest person in the United Kingdom, the age of documented. At 63 she married a man named Noel, who died at the age of 105 years, but Hughes lived to 115 She died in 1993. Florrie Baldwin was born in 1896 and lives in a nursing home in Leeds. Britain's oldest woman. According to her, she recalls with Queen Victoria during her visit met and read in the newspapers about the end of the Boer War. She survived her husband Clifford for 35 years. Henry Ollinhem Ollinhem has become in recent years as the oldest veteran of World War II, a famous from a handful of those who are still alive. He was born in 1896 in South London. Now, at the age of 111 years, it is also the oldest man in Europe and in the world only after the age Tomoji Tanabe in Japan.
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