WANT TO LIVE FOREVER?
F
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rom the days of
Ramses the great and his fabled eternal potion, to the quaint, bespectacled scientists
in their ultra-modern hi-tech labs, it
has been the same quest. How can we
live forever?
Despite
the fact that nobody really wants to die, we’ve been raised with the belief
that death is inevitable, so we must consider the legacy of what we leave
behind. But what if you had unlimited time? What if we lived in a world where death of all
kinds was optional for everyone?
Living
forever might seem like a fable but considering the fact that average life
expectancy has increased from 35 years in 1800 to 75 years in 2014, maybe it
could continue to double infinitely. Diseases like dementia and heart diseases
currently block most people from reaching even a hundred. In the quest for
immortality, scientists have focused on how to stop aging in the body.
Life
expectancy is increasing 2 ½ years every decade due to factors like better
healthcare, improved medical services, public health, better education and
improved standard of living. Despite these, an average of about 150,000 people
still die everyday. Given the fact that everyday, our body suffers
damage and we don’t repair them perfectly, senescence remains a constant factor
for every human being. To tackle this, scientists have postulated a couple of
techniques which look positive but don’t really have too much prospect as of
now.
Ø Calorie restricted diet: If you reduce
your Caloric intake by 30 percent, then you could live much longer than we are
now. This technique, though tested and proven with rats, has proved difficult
for humans to maintain because of its stringent and bland diet. So , no official human testing yet.
Ø Anti-Aging pills: these could also
help to halt the increasing damage in the body as we age.
Ø Compounds such as resveratrol (found
in red wine and which could modify the aging process genetically), or
telomerase(an enzyme) and injection of human growth hormone.
Good
propositions, but some don’t even care to wait for all these methods, Ray
Kurzweil claims that by 2045, an event called “the
singularity” will occur in which humans will become one with
machines thereby eliminating death. As part of this “singularity”, computers
have been touted to become the future keepers of the human brains with silicon
limbs and metallic body, here comes the robotic generation. As interesting as
that sounds, it is rather unsettling to imagine becoming one with machines.
Maybe
computers could absorb human brains, maybe they can’t, as scientists figure out
whether we will be part-machine or hopped up on life-prolonging chemicals, I
think it is better not abandon your life’s legacy just yet. Since we don’t yet know whether we are going to live forever,
maybe we should then be concerned with how we can live a long and healthy life.
In
1797, Dr Huseland of Germany proposed some principles for lengthy-living. I
have adopted and adjusted some of them to suit our present times. They are:
Ø
A
moderate diet that is rich in vegetables but short on meat and sweetened
pastries.
Ø
An
active lifestyle
Ø
Good
care of your teeth
Ø
Regular
bathing in lukewarm water with soap
Ø
Clean
air
Ø
Good
sleep
Ø
Being
born to parent’s who themselves lived long.
Apart
from the last item which is beyond our control, all others are things we could
actually do. Little things like this do affect how long we get to live on
earth, all things being equal. We just have to be satisfied with that for now
while scientists try to find us a way to live forever. But
really, why do we want to live forever?
H.R Mcmak
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