Herodotus already spoke about it in 5e century BC. Painters of the Middle Ages imagined it many times. The conquistadors looked for it in the New World. And Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, still believes in it. The Fountain of Youth, this miraculous source that promises life or eternal youth, is a universal fantasy that has not aged a bit. Today, it is in the laboratories that the quest continues.
Investments in research to counter or even reverse aging are reaching new heights. They are mainly the work of billionaires from Silicon Valley, like Jeff Bezos or Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, obsessed with the hope of thwarting death. Thus, in 2022, more than 5.2 billion US dollars have been injected into 130 start-ups working for longevity – 10 times more than a decade ago. We are no longer trying to prolong life, we are simply trying to reverse the biological clock.
And these massive efforts are paying off. Clinical trials are multiplying, as are spectacular announcements. Some examples? Last July, a team from Singapore extended the life of a mouse by 25% by “turning off” the production of a single molecule, IL-11.
In 2023, a team from Harvard University discovered a cocktail of six molecules capable, in less than a week and without altering DNA, of restoring the molecular vigor of cells cultured in the laboratory. A real step back in time! The study, published in the journal Agingcaused a stir, making the dream of rejuvenation potentially accessible thanks to a simple pill. The main author of this work, the geneticist David Sinclair, did not waste time: this year he marketed the first pill supposedly capable of making dogs rejuvenate (which aroused the anger of many scientists, because the formula of the pill is secret, no trial has been published and the touted effect is in fact tiny).
Time being relentless, impatience goes hand in hand with the quest for immortality. Prominent people on social media have been encouraging the self-administration of rapamycin, an immunosuppressant prescribed following a transplant, since a study showed that this treatment increased the lifespan of mice by 15 to 20%. . And too bad for the risks of infection and other metabolic side effects. Others transfuse the blood of younger people, inspired by a body of studies which showed in rodents that juvenile blood helped fight the signs of aging. American billionaire Bryan Johnson recently orchestrated a blood donation between his 17-year-old son and his 70-year-old father. Assessment to date: no notable change.
Conjectures about the maximum age to which humans can aspire are also rife. In the magazine Genome Biologythe “futurist” João Pedro de Magalhães, professor of biogerontology at the University of Birmingham, recently explained that aging would not be linked to damage to the “ hardware “, that is to say biological material, but that it would rather result from a “software” problem. In other words, it would be programmed into the DNA. If we reprogram cells adequately, he believes, we could theoretically live up to… 1000 years. Needless to say, this thesis raises the eyebrows of most specialists, who consider that our species will in fact struggle to exceed the threshold of 120 years.
For my part, I’m not sure I’ll be tempted by the centuries-old experience – and I’ll never have the chance anyway. If such elixirs of long life end up seeing the light of day, they will be reserved for billionaires and other tech moguls convinced that their prolonged presence on the planet would be a blessing for the rest of humanity. This will only increase already glaring inequalities in terms of life expectancy – and above all, quality of life.
Because for ordinary people, living longer is often accompanied by an increasing number of years of poor health. In short, more and more people are living with debilitating illnesses, especially those who are less fortunate.
In the United States, the difference in life expectancy between black and white populations is on average 5 years. I’ll let you guess who “wins”. In Boston, recent data has shown that the gap in life expectancy can be as much as 15 or 20 years depending on whether you live in a rich or poor neighborhood. And this, just a few blocks away. In Montreal, a study also revealed that people living in certain eastern neighborhoods could expect to live up to 9 years less than people in the west of the island. And that’s without mentioning the risk of loneliness, which increases as life lengthens… According to a recent report, 41% of Canadians over the age of 50 are at risk of isolation. In this regard, old age can seem endless.
This puts things into perspective. While the extremely wealthy technophiles hope to afford eternity, let us work at our level for more united and fairer societies, so that the golden age is sparkling for more people.
