X-Message-Number: 15600 From: "Mark Plus" <> Subject: "Not built for the ages" Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2001 18:54:19 -0800 From: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/010219/evolve.htm Science & Ideas 2/19/01 Not built for the ages We might not want to be 150 years old By Emily Sohn The human body is like an overgrown windup toy. It starts out with great exuberance but inevitably peters out. Recently scientists have speculated that the body's muscles, nerves, and plumbing might be engineered to keep chugging much longer 150 years or more. But at least one expert on aging disagrees. The basic anatomy, he argues, just isn't designed for longevity. Yet there's a silver lining to being somewhat short-lived, says Jay Olshansky, a biodemographer at the University of Illinois-Chicago's School of Public Health. Longevity, he contends, wouldn't be pretty at least by our current cultural standards. A "built-to-last" human would be short, stocky, and tilted forward all to make bone loss and fractures less likely. Extra ribs, to prevent hernias, would add girth. Backward-bending knees would reduce friction in the joints, but would make it hard to stand still. Swiveling, oversize ears (to catch more sound) might be attractive in the future, but for now they're still Star Trek oddities. Ditto the squidlike eyes, which are less prone to vision loss. Other changes would be less visible, but equally iffy. Restructuring the throat would prevent choking but make conversation a challenge. Moving the male prostate gland slightly to the side of the bladder would prevent the enlargement that affects 1 in every 2 older men. Strengthening the muscles controlling the female bladder would relieve incontinence but could cause other unexpected problems. But accepting our bodies' built-in design flaws could also be comforting to people who blame themselves for health problems later in life, says Richard Rog-ers, a sociologist at the University of Colorado-Boulder. "People can say, 'Hey, I'm lucky to be 100. If incontinence is the only problem I've got, then I'm in good shape.' " Body shop. The inevitability of aging is no reason to give up on eating well and exercising, Olshansky says. Until human body shops are equipped to redesign people for longevity, a healthful lifestyle can do a lot to enhance life's richness, if not its length. And that doesn't mean with drugs or dietary supplements. "Everything we're doing now is a treatment for an existing or potential disease," says Olshansky. "It is not modifying the aging process itself, and it is not modifying the basic body plan that all of us inherited from our ancestors." To actually extend life spans, scientists will have to figure out how to get at the genes that control how fast we age. That is a long way off. For now, perhaps folk singer Michelle Shocked has the best advice: "The secret to a long life's knowing when it's time to go." _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=15600