Don't Grow Old

Don't Grow Old

2010, Science  -   54 Comments
7.39
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Ratings: 7.39/10 from 28 users.

Don't Grow OldFor centuries scientists have been attempting to come up with an elixir of youth. Now remarkable discoveries are suggesting that aging is something flexible that can ultimately be manipulated.

Horizon meets the scientists who are attempting to piece together why we age and more vitally for all of us, what we can do to prevent it. But which theory will prevail?

Does the 95-year-old woman who smokes two packets of cigarettes a day hold the clue? Do blueberries really delay signs of aging or is it more a question of attitude?

Does the real key to controlling how we age lie with a five-year-old boy with an extraordinary aging disease or with a self-experimenting Harvard professor? Could one of these breakthroughs really see our lives extend past 120 years?

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michael howard
michael howard
10 years ago

I do not believe we are aging since time does not move forward or backward. I believe that we continously ingest poisons unsuitable for the human body. Food is the one true drug that we have been taught to eat since birth, but is it really compatible with the Human system? If there is a creator, and he did in fact create us wouldn't he create a food for us to eat? what would that food be?

Isabelle
Isabelle
11 years ago

I didn't know lab rats were exposed to the same toxins that human are. We need to detox our bodies anyway we can find (nutrition or supplements) and also to reduce stress. When our immune system functions as it should we can fight anything. unfortunately we get overwhelmed over time...

cezy
cezy
13 years ago

my gran is 91, she still has a few brothers and sisters in their 90s, her mother died at 94 (not of age, but broken leg). She lives on her own, goes shopping and visits her friends across the street. She also cooks for herself, eats chocolate and does not mind a glass of wine now and again. Oh yeah, she can still bend down and touch her toes! When I ask her for her secret, she grins and replies: I look after myself. I think the last part of this documentary gets it right, it's mind over body.

Johnny Armageddon
Johnny Armageddon
13 years ago

On first thought, living to 150 seems amazing. Then I realize that there are almost seven billion humans infecting this planet and if we all live longer itll only hasten our entire species demise. First humanity needs to learn to live a sustainable lifestyle, only then should you worry about living a longer life.

Misa Amane
Misa Amane
13 years ago

Age shouldn't really concern anyone. I mean, you're going to waste your life worrying about getting wrinkles, when worrying ACTUALLY gives you wrinkles. It's better to have a care-free life; that way, you live a long, happy and meaningful life. My only concern is becoming famous someday. I wonder if someone can actually provide a formula for having your name go down in history. That would be true immortality.

Arnold Vinette
Arnold Vinette
13 years ago

An interesting documentary on people obsessed with either stopping the aging process or trying to understand it. I liked the scientist who was working with the centarians.

Interestingly enough I have never been worried about aging myself because I have always looked 10 years longer then my peers. In fact trying to look older was always my biggest problem.

And as far as acting old, the same problem has plagued me my entire life, I always have more fun hanging out with kids who are much more fun than spending time with adults who are always so darn serious, competitive and greedy.

It was such a serious problem in my marriage that my former spouse finally divorced me out of sheer frustration that I spent more time hanging out with our kids than with her.

So now I have found the perfect job working with kids all over the world funding art programs all over the world. Facebook pages: Ottawa Kids Artwork, Canadian Kids Artwork, American Kids Artwork, European Kids Artwork and Russian Kids Artwork. Every day I post thousands of pieces of artwork a day.

How long will I live? to be honest I don't really care as long as I am having fun, doing what I love to do every day, funding art programs all over the world and exercising every week. Staying young has never been my problem, getting old that has been a real challenge.

Arnold Vinette
Ottawa, Canada

Yanis Vergos
Yanis Vergos
13 years ago

? wanna survive up to 160 years?
Or you want to live?
your choice of course.
the doc is really boring for someone under 44

Robert M
Robert M
13 years ago

A good start I think, mind is over matter, or matter is mind. This documentary does well to start the path to youth over, but I think still has a ways to go. To be young, laugh. To be healthy, exercise. To live long, you should keep the brain going strong always.

Think of the brain as a muscle that needs exercise, not just in the youth of our school but to learn the same every day as the day before and more. This will lead to youth and wisdom together. And in this way such problems as you say food shortages and dis-ease will soon also become a thing of the past. God if you like can help. But no single one can be a god. Only all together are we of.

The aging population should not need taking care of, but could do well with motivation to keep learning. It makes you young again ;) Oh and always laugh!

Guest
Guest
13 years ago

anddddddddddddd.....
What if death was a real cool wall to go through, just like birth was. Although birth must have been painful, may be death of whatever 1 was before was less painful than the birth. So what if instead of trying to postpone death until death, 1 prepared for it the way 1 gets ready for a long trip. What if 1 got excited to die knowing 1 doesn't know what's next. Just the same way 1 person would get excited to go to Africa for the first time, specially if that person didn't know any other 1 who has ever been there (which was my case). 1 packs bags, image in, gets fit for the treck, goes to the airport, enters the plane and takes off....toward an unexpected unfolding.
No 1 knows what was before, no 1 knows was is after...it is as simple as that.
So why not write 1's own death sentence with a scenario that fits the actor!

i understand being alone at the moment
neither in front of sure death
nor in front of undivided love
you may be puzzled the size of a pixel whit
if you trust there is a period to an i
preceded by many comas
you will know what's important
the experiences of my life have forced me
to question myself in very rewarding ways
how can 1 stay in the present continuously
is 1 central question i have in my mind
at all moments of the day
to remain current in the flow of my ideas
is an unusual school of discoveries
keeping my ship tidy is an exercise
a great way to exhaust too much energy
a marvelous way to gain some
it permits silence while allowing to plan
the next fertile row towards the end
of the beginning
1 can die from the hit of lightening
1 can live from the hit of enlightenment
so why be afraid of dying
let us be afraid of not living

az
a poet in her free time

tariqxl
tariqxl
13 years ago

Should the average person live to 120 (at least), the world population would increase and age. Not good considering we already need to increase farming output by 50% and the amount of deforestation we reek on this planet is epic in scale. And immortality sounds cool but we would all have to agree never to reproduce, all being fair, who's to say we're the generation that says no new personalities should ever be created.

games theorists say that if you know every conceivable factor you can predict the future.... True, unless you count the unpredictable nature of intelligent life. Even unintelligent life shapes seemingly unchanging and predictable states, like bacteria that consumes rock converting it into soil and algae that converts the gases we breath... natural terraforming. Death plays an important part in all of that too.

Imagine the damage that 1 person can do in 80 years of live... now add 50% to that persons life cycle. The good this person could do is only really good for his/her existance or for his/her species not generally the ecosystems surrounding. Like it or not we have a duty to future generations and future species, we are duty bound to die. We should turn our attention away from selfish persuits to better sciences, to see how comfortable we can make the earth for ALL life rather than just our own.

Peace out.

Dutch Major
Dutch Major
13 years ago

If people had to work a fulltime job earning just enough to get by for 1000years...i think people might start to think change is needed and simply owning your own home is the peak of your lifes financial achievments.After all watching some rich dude site ontop of your back, getting most the rewards from your work and you getting the scraps for 1000years aint going to be fun.So obviously living longer gives oportunity to advance one's inteligence and most importantly LEARN from their mistakes and as a society mistakes of history, rather then just repeating them every bloody century over and over like everyone has a memory defect.After all if what you do will suck big time in 200 years and your going to be alive to reap the s*** you created...you might start to reconsider your actions. Not to mention a few hundred years people might actually learn politicians are shit talkers and regardless who you vote nothing changes for the better...hell they might actually discover people create change, not the government.Ceasing the effects of ageing doesnt mean you wont die, after all if you strap your arse to a nuke and let it rip...im not sure how your going to be alive anymore lol...unless the technology to copy/save your mind into a clone in the evnt of your main body and mind getting destroyed....even then your clone and mental data could be destroyed also...so its impossible to live forever...but you could possibly live almost indefinately with the corect technology.I woudlnt expect people to live over a thousand years if suddenly everyone could today, im sure accidents and killing each other would stop msot getting taht far...we arent at a civilised point were we could truly reap the benefits of living hundreds of years, but they certainly would help us in our current situation.

Arif Karim
Arif Karim
13 years ago

Science trying to defy death and aging :D

Lark Malark
Lark Malark
13 years ago

One could argue that death is what makes life worthless. We are all going to die so there is not much point in improving yourself.

jilted_generation
jilted_generation
13 years ago

Right ... Let's all imagine an immortal Rockerfeller.

One might say, why not imagine an immortal Einstein (One weapon of mass destruction is enough thank you).

Death is what makes life valuable, and it's what makes us evolve in terms of society, mentality etc.

"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing it's oponents and making them see the light, but rather becouse it's opponents eventually die" (M. Plank)