Life Extension Techniques

Life Extension And Longevity Technologies: An Overview

Life extension refers to attempts to slow down or reverse the processes of aging to extend both the maximum and average lifespan. Life extension is the science dedicated to understanding the processes of aging and to developing ways of slowing them down or reversing them. The goals of life extension include increasing both average and maximum human lifespan. Extension of average lifespan can be achieved by good diet, lifestyle such as exercise and avoidance of hazards such as smoking.

Existing life extension methods are nutritionally and pharmaceutically based, while research is conducted across a wide spectrum of strategies. Much of life extension has been concerned with the use of nutrition, in the form of diets or supplements, to extend lifespan. The idea that antioxidant supplements, such as Vitamin C, Vitamin E, lipoic acid, might extend human life stems from the free radical theory of aging. Resveratrol is another hot life extension supplements on the market. Many anti-aging super foods supplements are available on the market. Anti-Aging herbs and anti-aging super foods are particulary important because they offer natural sources of dietary supplement with no potential side effects to be concerned about. One widely recognized method of extending maximum lifespan is calorie restriction. The anti-aging industry offers several hormone replacement therapies. The most widely available and important hormone treatment is human growth hormone (HGH). Other anti-aging medicine are available on the market.

Cosmetic interventions such as skin treatments (e.g., skin resurfacing procedures, Botox treatments, anti-aging topical skin care products) and plastic surgery are widely used to mask the effects of aging, although they do not actually affect lifespan.The sale of putative anti-aging products such as nutrition, physical fitness, skin care, hormone replacements, vitamins, supplements and herbs has become a lucrative industry.

Some researchers in this area, life extensionists or longevists believe that future breakthroughs in anti-aging regenerative medicine — tissue rejuvenation with stem cells, cell therapy, tissue engineering, molecular repair, therapeutic cloning, and organ replacement (such as with bioartificial organ, artificial organs, allotransplantation or xenotransplantations) — will eventually enable humans to have indefinite lifespans through complete rejuvenation to a youthful condition. Theoretically, extension of maximum lifespan could be achieved by reducing the rate of aging damage, by periodic replacement of damaged tissues, or by molecular repair or rejuvenation of deteriorated cells and tissues. Gene therapy, in which artificial genes are inserted into an organism to replace mutated or otherwise deficient longevity genes, has been proposed as a future strategy to prevent aging. Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS) is the term useed by Aubrey de Grey to give to his proposal to research regenerative medical procedures to periodically repair all the age-related damage in the human body, thereby maintaining a youth-like state indefinitely. Imagine a time in the future when, once those body parts (cells, tissues and organs) start breaking down, you can just plug a new one right in. Some longevists have proposed that nanorobots could perform cellular repair in vivo, which could reverse damage from aging at the molecular level, restoring youth and giving a potentially indefinite lifespan.

For cryonicists (advocates of cryopreservation), storing the body at low temperatures after death may provide an “ambulance” into a future in which advanced medical technologies may allow resuscitation and repair although no mammal has been cryopreserved and brought back to life. Mind uploading refers to the transfer of the human mind/consciousness to a more durable material vessel (stereotypically but not necessarily a silicon computer).

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