{"id":17339,"date":"2012-05-24T11:47:30","date_gmt":"2012-05-24T10:47:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/?p=17339"},"modified":"2012-05-25T14:41:00","modified_gmt":"2012-05-25T13:41:00","slug":"stephen-ginn-moral-obligation-or-a-disaster-for-humanity-and-the-planet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2012\/05\/24\/stephen-ginn-moral-obligation-or-a-disaster-for-humanity-and-the-planet\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen Ginn: \u201cMoral obligation\u201d or \u201ca disaster for humanity and the planet?&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.bmj.com\/site\/blog\/icons\/stephen_ginn2.jpg\" alt=\"Stephen Ginn\" width=\"90\" height=\"110\" align=\"left\" \/>Is medical control of human aging a worthy goal?<\/p>\n<p>Despite the moisturisers you can buy it is impossible to reverse the damage of aging and very few of us will live to anywhere near the theoretical maximum of human age, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Maximum_lifespan\">estimated to be 125<\/a>. Yet some people think the first person who will live substantially longer than this is alive today.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Aubrey_de_Grey\">Aubrey de Grey<\/a> is one of them.\u00a0 He was recently speaking at <a href=\"http:\/\/users.ox.ac.uk\/~science\/termcards\/tt12.shtml#video\">a debate<\/a> at the Oxford University Scientific Society, for the motion \u201cThis house wants to defeat aging entirely.\u201d\u00a0 De Grey is the chief scientific officer of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sens.org\/sens-foundation\">SENS foundation<\/a> and a cheer leader for bringing aging under medical control.\u00a0 \u201cThis is no longer a radical heretical idea\u201d he says; for de Grey defeating aging is at the heart what medicine is about. And when we treat aging, longevity is a welcome side effect.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Methods to extend human lifespan are speculative and de Grey\u2019s ideas are controversial. <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Calorie_restriction\">Calorie restriction<\/a> is shown to increase the lifespan of several species, including rodents and fish, but there is no evidence that this will translate to humans. <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Life_extension#Nanotechnology\">Nanomedicine<\/a> is a futuristic strategy, with constant corporeal repair provided by microscopic robots. Another proposal is for cloning to generate cells, body parts, or even entire replacement bodies.<\/p>\n<p>De Grey is bullish about the future and the emergence of new technologies \u201cif you tried to predict the rate of improvement in the Atlantic crossing by looking at ocean going liners you\u2019d have been wrong\u201d he says.\u00a0 Another of his proposals is of a &#8220;human longevity escape velocity&#8221; which supposes that initial life extension therapies will only grant a modest life extension. This extra lifespan will see a recipient through until the development of more advanced therapies. In this way the first person to live to 150 might also be first person to live to 1000.<\/p>\n<p>I find this reasonably persuasive. <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Colin_Blakemore\">Colin Blakemore<\/a>, professor of neuroscience at Oxford University, does not.\u00a0 He was speaking against de Grey.\u00a0 \u201cUtterly unrealistic\u201d is how he describes de Grey\u2019s proposals and says that to defeat aging an \u201cincredible range of age related disorders would have to be defeated.\u201d He thinks that talk such as de Grey\u2019s is a distraction from the real work of medical research.<\/p>\n<p>Blakemore also says that the emergence of technology that will substantially prolong human life will be a \u201cdisaster for humanity and the planet.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I agree.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think that it\u2019s inherently unethical to seek to extend human lifespan.\u00a0 It may actually be immoral not to do so as it denies future generations the chance of extended lives.\u00a0 Diseases of old age (which is most of them) kill 50 million people a year worldwide and these will be preventable deaths like any other.<\/p>\n<p>But I am worried about the consequences.\u00a0 Even the prophets of life extension such as de Grey concede that, without a drop in birth rate, problems of rising population will become even more acute.\u00a0 We will need to choose between living longer and having children, as doing both will be catastrophic.<\/p>\n<p>As for my profession, I fear the emergence of life extending technology will divide the medical world.\u00a0 At present many doctors do not consider aging to be a &#8220;disease,&#8221; and it is therefore a questionable target for our attentions.\u00a0 Despite this objection, many doctors\u2019 careers do not focus on acquired disease but on treating the consequences of age related decay. Either way, once we are able to arrest aging, life extension will be the only show in town.<\/p>\n<p>Population explosion and doctors\u2019 objections aside, how else would living to 150, 300, or 1000 affect us and our societies? There are many potential pitfalls. Progress in many spheres\u2014scientific, political, commercial\u2014happens when its opponents die.\u00a0 Life extension will profoundly affect power structures as death will no longer serve as the ultimate solution to entrenched authority. If life extension were to be restricted to a wealthy few then this will further exacerbate our already deep social divisions.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps most fundamentally, without a sense of urgency, what sense will we make of our lives?\u00a0 Will longer lifespan allow us to live all the lives we want, or will boredom overtake us leading to widespread demoralization? Maybe with so many more years to lose we will all become more careful with our bodies, reflective in our relations, and optimistic in our outlook.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Stephen Ginn<\/strong> is the <em>BMJ<\/em> editorial registrar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Is medical control of human aging a worthy goal? Despite the moisturisers you can buy it is impossible to reverse the damage of aging and very few of us will [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2012\/05\/24\/stephen-ginn-moral-obligation-or-a-disaster-for-humanity-and-the-planet\/\">More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5667,1406,14756,5668,5669],"class_list":["post-17339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-aging","tag-death","tag-global-health","tag-life-span","tag-world-population"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Stephen Ginn: \u201cMoral obligation\u201d or \u201ca disaster for humanity and the planet?&quot; - The BMJ<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2012\/05\/24\/stephen-ginn-moral-obligation-or-a-disaster-for-humanity-and-the-planet\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Stephen Ginn: \u201cMoral obligation\u201d or \u201ca disaster for humanity and the planet?&quot; - The BMJ\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Is medical control of human aging a worthy goal? 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