Exercise, good nutrition, lifestyle choices, modern medicine and major technological advances can all extend life. But there's no fountain of youth. The human body has built-in limitations. And if humans were "built to last," they would both look and be very different than they are.
Picture a "muscular elf" — shorter, squatter and more solid. Perhaps with large ears and knees that bend both forward and backward. It's certainly no Bo Derek "10." But it would be more durable.
Not long ago, three researchers were having lunch in Chicago and started talking about a lot of the "hype and overenthusiasm of claims, which are a speciality of 'anti-aging' medicine," remembers one of them, Robert Butler, president of the International Longevity Center in New York City. "They advance this notion that remedies, hormones, antioxidants, if they won't make you immortal, they will dramatically extend your life.
"Researchers would be happy indeed if there were well-established findings that you could have health and a vigorous, extended life."
The result of the conversation between Butler and University of Illinois professor S. Jay Olshansky and Bruce A. Carnes, both senior research scientists at the National Opinion Research Center/Center on Aging at the University of Chicago, is a somewhat fanciful, somewhat serious examination of what we would all look like if we were "built to last." Their conclusions were published in the March issue of Scientific American.
Ears would be bigger and "mobile" to overcome damage from loss of fragile hair cells. The eyes would be rewired to prevent the retina from detaching. Knees would bend backward to avoid all the grinding and deterioration that wear down cartilage. And we would never, ever walk completely erect, but would instead tip forward a bit to take pressure off our backbones.
We'd have thicker disks and better padding in the form of both muscles and fat. Our bones would be thicker, and we'd have more ribs to hold our organs in place more completely.
Our optic nerve would be attached to the back of the retina to make it more stable. And a raised trachea would let food and drink go past the windpipe better — with one small problem. There'd still have to be design adjustments so we could breathe through our mouths.
Because prostate problems are the bane of the aging male, the urethra would be moved off to the side, so that an enlarged prostate wouldn't squeeze it. And women who are prone to continence problems because muscles and ligaments get weaker over time would simply be provided with stronger muscles and larger ligaments.
"There are definitive mechanical limitations just in the way we're built," said Butler, who wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, "Why Survive? Being Old in America." For example, "In an airplane, the noise breaks down the hair cells. Because we're erect and not on all fours, we have back troubles. But from the perspective of evolution, the main function is perpetuation of the species. We are built to last through reproduction, not to last forever. But some of the issues are quality of life and some are longevity," he said.
In truth, extending life hinges on "the wisdom you got from mom," said Carnes, who did his undergraduate work at the University of Utah and recently, with Olshansky, wrote a book called "The Quest for Immortality." The book is a direct reaction to other books "promising people that they can stop or reverse the aging process and make you younger," said Carnes. "It's baloney. There's no scientific evidence to support those claims. They use pseudoscience or falsehoods to sell a product, exploiting the fears of people over aging.
"Exercise and a balanced diet are proven by scientific studies to have a beneficial impact. And you don't have to spend money to do it. Anybody can be more fit than they are today and that's true regardless of your age. . . . If you are more fit, you are almost for sure going to improve the quality of your life and that's our big message. There are lots of things you can do to improve the quality of life, but not so much you can do to extend the length of life. Although there are almost an unlimited number of things you can do to shorten your life," Carnes said.
"Any fool can die young. Just smoke, use excessive alcohol, take recreational drugs and engage in risky behaviors. To live a long time, to try to achieve the lifespan potential you were born with, that's harder to do and takes daily discipline and vigilance, maintained over long periods of time."
No matter what happens, though, some limitations are built in.
"There are key limiting factors," Butler said. "From pure scientific observation, we see a growing number of centenarians — about 84,000. By mid-century it will be 840,000 and by the end of the century, 5 million. Eighty-five percent of them are women.
"Women in general live longer than men and make up the bulk of centenarians. But they also have more physical and mental problems than men, principally in hearing, vision and mental memory problems. Those are three really major limiting factors. If you can't recognize your loved ones and carry on a conversation, take care of yourself and see adequately or hear well, you become quite isolated. It's a painful set of limiting factors."
And don't laugh at the elfin image, Butler told the Deseret News. Scientists are already hard at work examining the 200-plus types of cells in the body to see how stem cells can be used to create each type — and possibly replace those that are wearing out or misfunctioning.
The pay-off could be new pancreatic islet cells to treat diabetes, glial cells for multiple sclerosis, chondrocytes for arthritis.
Genetics are believed to account for about 30 percent of overall health. The rest is up to the individual in the choices he or she makes about lifestyle, activity, food and other things, including maintaining your "mental vitality."
And the bottom line, Butler said, is even with the "improvements" they recommend, the human body would eventually wear out. It's like anything else, from the old, reliable and pampered automobile to the much-loved quilt. As long as it's used, it will wear out, he said.
E-MAIL: lois@desnews.com