Feature: Medical Science Can Reverse Human Aging

An MSU doctor says decade medical science will soon unlock the secrets of the Fountain of Youth and 'change life as we know it.'

Youth's a stuff will not endure -- William Shakespeare

The world improves and will continue to do so. Now, it is about to improve in ways we have long only dreamed of -- Michael Fossel

It was the early 1500s. Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon was hacking his way through the overgrown forests of what is now Florida searching for life everlasting -- the elusive Fountain of Youth

Obviously, Ponce de Leon failed in his quest and the Fountain of Youth remains as elusive as ever. Or does it? Now look ahead to the year 2020. Diseases that only two or three decades ago routinely killed thousands upon thousands of people -- cancer, heart disease, Alzheimers and others -- are pages in a history book. A humans life span, once barely reaching 80 years, is now well over 100 and, in some cases, 200 and even 300 years. A dream? Science fiction? The latest summer blockbuster movie? According to Dr. Michael Fossel this is reality. Or, at least, soon-to-be reality.

Fossel is a clinical professor of medicine at Michigan State University and the author of Reversing Human Aging, a new book that details how cancer, heart disease and other fatal illnesses may be conquered, how human life spans could be extended beyond our wildest dreams, and, if this becomes reality, how the lives of many humans will be dramatically changed. Reversing Human Aging is not a book about Fossel's research, but rather the work of many other futuristic scientists.

What Fossel did was take this research -- research that is quite complicated and, for most of us, beyond comprehension -- and put it into a readable and very understandable form. 'That is clearly one of the strengths of the book,' he says. He says another strength is that all of the information provided is accurate. 'But,' he says, 'the question has to be asked: Can we extrapolate from cell aging to organ aging? That is clearly speculation.'

In the very first chapter, Fossel calls his book 'a promise and a warning. It is a promise of a time when we will live longer and much healthier lives. It is also a warning of what could happen when we do.'

Fossel says medical science is on the verge of changing history forever. How will this happen? He bases his predictions on a microscopic (actually smaller than microscopic) bit of molecular material called a telomere. Physically located on the tip of every chromosome, the telomere is actually our biological clock, that timekeeper that ticks inside each human cell, telling it when to get old. 'Doctors have known for years that as we age, our genes down- regulate, weaken and turn off our defense mechanisms, leaving us more vulnerable to disease,' Fossel said. 'However, until now, doctors have known little about what the clock was and how it is directly responsible for the aging process.'

What actually happens is as we get on in years, the telomeres shrink. Every time a cell divides, the telomeres shorten. As they shrink, cells age and, once the telomere is gone, eventually die. The key, says Fossel, is to alter the telomere length and actually re-set the biological clock -- work that is currently being done. Researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas recently reported in a scientific journal that they had manipulated the length of telomeres to alter life spans of human cells.

Another method under consideration is the use of something called telomerase, an enzyme that keeps telomeres intact. Scientists are working to develop an artificial form of telomerase, which is found in every cancer cell, in human sperm, and, what Fossel calls, certain other 'immortal cells.' If telomerase can be cloned, it can then be made into a drug that encourages cells to make their own telomerase. Another project scientists are currently working on is trying to decide if the telomerase already in the human body can be convinced to re-set the clocks of certain cells. These cells, now able to express their own telomerase, would then re-set the clocks of certain cells. When these techniques and technologies are finally made available, cancer, heart disease, Alzheimers disease, and many other maladies that have no cure, could be not-so-fond memories.

FIGHTING DISEASE AT THE CELLULAR LEVEL

So, the key to getting rid of age-related diseases such as arthritis, Alzheimers and heart disease, lies in the lengthening of those biological clocks known as telomeres. However, when it comes to cancer, thats an entirely different story. Thats because cancer cells work differently. When a person has cancer, the cancer cells just flat-out refuse to die. Like rabbits, they just keep making more of them. The key here, says Fossel, is the shortening of the telomeres.

A telomerase inhibitor, which prevents cells from dividing endlessly, could work in this case. But it would work only on cancers that use telomerase to continually reset their cellular clocks. Which cancers are those? Fossel writes 'So far, every cancer that has been examined expresses telomerase soon or later. But do all cancers express it? Probably, although the answer depends on our definition of a cancer cell. In some precancerous cells, some benign tumors, and some neuroblastomas (cancers effecting the nervous system) with a favorable prognosis, there is either no demonstrated telomerase activity or very little of it. Cancers that don't express telomerase are less malignant that those that do.' Fossel says that many medical experts expect that telomerase inhibitors will be able to clinically cure cancer with few exceptions and with little or no side effects by the year 2005.

SOCIAL AND ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS

If humans suddenly find themselves living 200 or 300 years, what will be the impact on society? Consider that over the last couple of decades, the human life span has grown considerably, burdening already-burdened systems of health care and social welfare. 'Predicting the social effects of age reversal is much more difficult that predicting the medical effects,' Fossel says. 'What will be the social implications of it? I don't know.'

He points out that there are two major differences between medical advances of the past and the potential that lies in telomere therapy. 'Breakthroughs' of the past added only a few extra years of life, as opposed to decades or even centuries.

In addition, medical advances of the past affected a very small percentage of the worlds population. Telomere therapy has the potential of reaching a much greater segment of the world's inhabitants. The world's population currently stands at about 6 billion and is likely to double within the next 50 years or so. With the advent of telomere therapy, would the Earth become as crowded as the bleak scenes from Orwell's 1984? Not necessarily, says Fossel. And here's why.

• Telomere therapy will not be useful to every single person on the planet. 'Many people will still die of diseases unrelated to aging,' Fossel says.
• The countries with the highest birth rates are those that can least afford it, countries where the most common causes of death have nothing to do with aging.

Telomere therapy will have its greatest impact on the Swedens, Germanys and Netherlands of the world -- nations whose birth rate is fewer than two children per woman. 'Countries with low birth rates will also have the greatest decrease in death rates,' Fossel says. 'Thus telomere therapy will have less effect on population growth than if it increased the life span uniformly everywhere.'