In a corridor of a London conference centre, Dr Marios Kyriazis, chairman of the British Longevity Society, is outlining his vision of the future. ?Right now there are about 10 people aged 110 in the world,? he explains in his native Cypriot accent. ?Soon there will be 500 people, then 1,000. Slowly we?ll start living to 115, 120, 125. The number of these people will slowly increase and before long, it?s reasonable to say that we?ll be living for 500 years.? Five hundred years? Dr Kyriazis shrugs laconically. ?People will still die from diseases, or in car crashes or being shot by a terrorist. But they will not die of old age.?
The late Steve Jobs famously described death as ?very likely the single best invention of life? it clears out the old to make way for the new?. Death defines our culture. The Neanderthals decorated their graves and positioned the corpses as if for another life. All great religions have promised some form of immortality. Today, we might no longer try to confer death with spiritual significance, but we still desperately try to defer ageing. American billionaire David Murdock, 88, is planning to live to be 125 simply by drinking three smoothies a day packed with 20 fruit and vegetables, eschewing dairy and red meat, ensuring a daily dose of sun for vitamin D and an hour of exercise ? all things most doctors would advocate.
His regime is positively conservative compared to the estimated 100,000 people worldwide who?ve embraced calorie restriction, cutting their daily calorific intake by up to 40 per cent, inspired by a 1934 experiment on rats which saw them live twice as long as normal on strict diets. Another 20,000 people follow the Primal Diet, that encourages them to eat raw ? preferably rancid ? meat in the belief it will encourage healthy intestinal bacteria ? and thus extend their lifespans to the max.
But soon such sell-by-dates will cease to exist, according to Dr Kyriazis, who reluctantly tells me he is 55 (?I think all dates of birth should be abolished?), though ? surprisingly ? his dark-rimmed eyes and cadaverous frame make him look far older. ?It?s nonsensical to believe nature, God, whatever, created life only to allow it to end after a set period of time,? he says. ?A living being, once created, should be allowed to live indefinitely, or ? put it another way ? should not be allowed to die. Otherwise, what was the point of creating it in the first place??
A growing number of equally creditable scientists (Kyriazis has a PhD in gerontology from King?s College, London) are convinced that humanity will achieve virtual immortality before the end of the century. We?re talking at the eighth British Anti-Ageing Conference, an annual event in which international experts gather to propagate theories and peddle wares designed to defeat all the nasties associated with old age.
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