Nobel Prize in Chemistry indicates best anti-aging remedies – 01/29/2024 – Balance

Getting old and dying, it happens to all of us and it also causes fear to (almost) everyone.

But why do we grow old and die? Is it possible to delay old age or even achieve immortality?

These questions have occupied much of the career of 71-year-old Indian molecular biologist Venki Ramakrishnan.

In 2009, together with Thomas A. Steitz and Ada E. Yonath, he received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his research into ribosomes, the cellular structure responsible for the production of proteins, which are the molecules that make life possible in all organisms. .

Ramakrishnan is the author of the book “Why We Die: The New Science of Aging and The Quest for Immortality”, which will be published in March, in English.

BBC News Mundo, the BBC’s Spanish-language news service, spoke to the scientist about these issues, from the chemical reactions that cause cells to deteriorate to the enormous implications that longer lives have for humanity.

Ramakrishnan is one of the guests at the Hay Festival Cartagena, which ends this January 28th in Colombia.

The most valuable information that genes carry is how to make proteins.

At the cellular level, proteins carry out thousands of chemical reactions that make life possible. They give shape and strength to our body, but they also allow communication between cells.

Thanks to them we have our senses. And our nervous system depends on them to transmit signals and store our memory.

Our antibodies are proteins, and they are what allow the cell to produce the molecules it needs, including fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, hormones and the genes themselves.

Therefore, aging has a lot to do with the loss of our body’s ability to regulate the production and destruction of proteins in cells.

We can see this as an accumulation of chemical damage to our molecules, cells, tissues and ultimately our entire body.

It is a gradual process, from the moment we are born. Even before that we are already getting older, but from an early age we don’t feel that because we are growing, we are developing.

Then, as the years go by, the symptoms become more evident and when critical systems begin to fail, the body is unable to function as a unified whole… And this is what leads to death.

The interesting thing about death is that, when we die, most of our cells are still alive — which is why our organs can be donated — but they are no longer able to function as a whole. This is death.

In your book you mention that in biology everything is explained in the light of evolution. From an evolutionary point of view, why do we age and die?
Because evolution doesn’t care about us as individuals.

Evolution is basically about the ability to transmit genes. And these genes do not reside in a vacuum, they reside in an individual.

Therefore, as long as you are able to grow, procreate, and ensure that your offspring reach reproductive age, evolution doesn’t care what happens to you because you have already passed on your genes.

It is true that our organisms could invest more effort in preventing aging, or in having better mechanisms to repair themselves, but from an evolutionary point of view it is more efficient to ensure that we grow faster and can reproduce to pass on our genes.

It is a balance that varies in each species.

For example, in a species that lives at high risk of being eaten by a predator, it does not make sense for its organism to evolve to live for many years, because it is very likely that it will be eaten at any time.

In mammals, larger species tend to have a longer life cycle than smaller ones.

In this, however, there is a curious exception: rats and bats weigh about the same, but bats have a much longer life cycle than rats.

Why? Because they can fly; therefore, they are less vulnerable to predators.

In the last 150 years, human life expectancy has doubled. One of the biggest debates among scientists is whether this life expectancy can continue to increase or whether we have already reached the life limit of our organisms. What is your position in this debate?
(…) With current knowledge, 120 years is the longest we could reasonably live, and it is unlikely that we will live beyond that age.

The curious thing is that, for example, Tom Perls, a scientist who studies longevity in Boston, USA, observed that although the number of people who reach 100 years old increases, the number of people who reach 110 does not increase.

His feeling is that, after the age of 110, we face natural biological limits.

Yes, there are people who, thanks to a combination of genetic and lifestyle factors, live more than 110 years, but that number of people is not increasing.

So yes, it seems like there is a natural limit.

Calculations have also been made that show that even if we managed to eliminate diseases like cancer, we would only increase average life expectancy by a few years.

Now, if we can somehow treat the causes of aging, perhaps we can overcome this limit, but I’m not sure how easy it would be and I don’t even know if it’s desirable. It’s something we have to think about, because there could be huge social consequences.

Some optimists say that the first person who will live to 150 has already been born, but I think they are too optimistic, because aging is highly multifactorial and it is not clear whether there are any definitive solutions that will stop this and keep us healthy.

Others point out that aging is something that happens to all of us. So how can something inevitable and universal be called a disease?

The WHO recently stated its position that aging is not a disease.

There is a lot of pressure for aging to be considered a disease because there is a lot of money invested in research related to this.

To carry out clinical studies and obtain approval from authorities, the existence of a disease is necessary.

In what areas do you think we will see the greatest progress in anti-aging treatments in the coming years?
As the joke attributed to baseball player Yogi Berra goes: “It’s hard to make predictions, especially about the future.”

I’m not sure how advanced they are, but there are several approaches that attempt to slow down aging.

For example, researchers have found that restricting calories often helps slow aging, with the caveat that among younger people it can cause problems.

So, the search is to create a medicine that has a similar effect to calorie restriction.

I jokingly say that it’s like you can eat a cake with ice cream without worrying about the calories, because you take a pill and that’s it. That’s what a lot of people would like.

There is a lot of interest in a drug called rapamycin, which follows this approach, but in high doses can be immunosuppressive and cause serious harm.

Another interesting field is parabiosis, in which blood is transfused from a young animal to an older one.

What happens there is that the animal that receives the blood is rejuvenated in several aspects, which means that there are factors in the blood that are responsible for aging, and there are studies to identify them.

There is also an approach related to senescence, which is the state in which cells stop functioning normally and stop dividing.

As we age, we accumulate more senescent cells, and the inflammation they produce as a sign that something is not right is an additional cause of aging.

So there are researchers wondering: is it possible to selectively destroy senescent cells? There is evidence that if this is achieved, some of the effects of aging can be reversed.

And there is a very interesting area of ​​cellular reprogramming, which consists of taking a cell to its initial state, reversing the changes that occurred in it.

Of course, this process is risky because it can often cause cancerous tumors.

We are far from being able to apply it to humans, but experiments have been carried out on animals that show promising results.

In addition to these advances, you also drew attention to other approaches that seem more science fiction and that gain a lot of media attention…
Yes, there are things that are completely science fiction at this point.

There are people who believe in cryogenics, which means that when someone dies they freeze their body in liquid nitrogen in the hope that, we don’t know how, in the future there will be technology to revive them.

I think for now it’s just exaggeration. It’s a way to capitalize on people’s fear of dying.

Plus, I think it’s a first world problem. Those who invest in cryogenics are people with a lot of money, who can buy everything except youth.

I grew up in India and know a lot of people from Africa. And no one in those places thinks about cryonics.

Fear of aging is widespread. That’s why we use Botox, we dye our gray hair, that kind of thing… Do you think that efforts to delay aging contribute to this fear of old age continuing to grow?
There is a lot of pressure not to grow old, and this pressure falls mainly on women. It’s horrible.

But I don’t think research into slowing aging feeds the fear of old age. On the contrary, I believe they are the result of this fear.

It’s a fear we’ve had for much of our history because we don’t have enough knowledge of medicine.

There is a lot of effort and a lot of money in science and technology that aims to slow down aging, but in your book you make it clear that there are other ways of staying healthy that are much more within our reach…
Eating well, sleeping well and exercising are currently more effective than any anti-aging medication on the market.

And they have no side effects, in addition to having a solid biological basis against aging.

Human beings did not evolve to eat in abundance, desserts and things like that.

Our species began as hunters and gatherers. We ate sporadically, fasted naturally and had the calorie restriction I mentioned before.

But now we eat even when we are not hungry, and in the West we see a huge increase in obesity.

Let’s talk about exercise. Today we live a sedentary life compared to our ancestors, who were farmers, hunters and manual workers.

And about sleep, we often underestimate its importance, but it is extremely valuable for our body’s repair mechanisms.

Putting these ancient tips into practice helps us maintain muscle mass, regulate mitochondrial function, blood pressure, stress and reduce the risk of dementia.

The problem is that it’s not always easy to follow them. Sometimes people would rather just pop a pill and live their lives the way they want. This is the part we have to overcome.

Do you like that popular phrase that says that it doesn’t matter how many years you live, but rather the life you had in those years?
It’s a very beautiful phrase and I agree with it. That’s what it’s all about, having a purpose, making the most of your life.

There is plenty of evidence that having a purpose in life reduces your risk of heart attacks and cognitive decline.

But it’s also true that we all instinctively want to live as long as we can, and this creates a paradox, because what we want as individuals is not necessarily good for society or the planet.

And we see it in energy use, in global warming, in the loss of biodiversity… We are making individual decisions that are harmful to society as a whole and reversing this requires a real conscious effort.