科學(xué)家預(yù)測人類能活到1000歲

If Aubrey de Grey's predictions are right, the first person who will live to see their 150th birthday has already been born. And the first person to live for 1,000 years could be less than 20 years younger.

A biomedical gerontologist and chief scientist of a foundation dedicated to longevity research, de Grey reckons that within his own lifetime doctors could have all the tools they need to "cure" aging -- banishing diseases that come with it and extending life indefinitely.

"I'd say we have a 50/50 chance of bringing aging under what I'd call a decisive level of medical control within the next 25 years or so," de Grey said in an interview before delivering a lecture at Britain's Royal Institution academy of science.

"And what I mean by decisive is the same sort of medical control that we have over most infectious diseases today."

De Grey sees a time when people will go to their doctors for regular "maintenance," which by then will include gene therapies, stem cell therapies, immune stimulation and a range of other advanced medical techniques to keep them in good shape.

De Grey lives near Cambridge University where he won his doctorate in 2000 and is chief scientific officer of the non-profit California-based SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence) Foundation, which he co-founded in 2009.

He describes aging as the lifelong accumulation of various types of molecular and cellular damage throughout the body.

"The idea is to engage in what you might call preventative geriatrics, where you go in to periodically repair that molecular and cellular damage before it gets to the level of abundance that is pathogenic," he explained.

For some, the prospect of living for hundreds of years is not particularly attractive, either, as it conjures up an image of generations of sick, weak old people and societies increasingly less able to cope.

But de Grey says that's not what he's working for. Keeping the killer diseases of old age at bay is the primary focus.

"This is absolutely not a matter of keeping people alive in a bad state of health," he told Reuters. "This is about preventing people from getting sick as a result of old age. The particular therapies that we are working on will only deliver long life as a side effect of delivering better health."

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如果奧布里•德•格雷的預(yù)測是正確的話，第一個能夠活到150歲的人已經(jīng)出生了。第一個能活1000年的人可能比能活到150歲的人年輕不到20歲。

據(jù)一個致力于長壽研究的基金會的首席科學(xué)家、老年生物醫(yī)學(xué)專家德•格雷估算，在他有生之年，醫(yī)生能夠掌握一切 “治療”衰老所需的方法，能夠驅(qū)除伴隨衰老而來的疾病，并無限期地延長壽命。

德•格雷在英國皇家科學(xué)院的一次講課前接受的訪談中說：“我敢說，我們有50%的幾率可以在未來大約25年內(nèi)對衰老實現(xiàn)決定性的醫(yī)療控制。”

“我所指的‘決定性’醫(yī)療控制和我們對現(xiàn)在大多數(shù)傳染性疾病采用的醫(yī)療控制是同一性質(zhì)的。”

德•格雷認為未來有一天人們會去找醫(yī)生定期做“保養(yǎng)”，讓自己保持良好的身體狀態(tài)，那時保養(yǎng)將包括基因療法、干細胞療法、免疫刺激和其他各種先進的醫(yī)療技術(shù)。

德•格雷現(xiàn)在住在劍橋大學(xué)附近，他于2000年在劍橋大學(xué)獲得博士學(xué)位，現(xiàn)在是位于加州的非盈利機構(gòu)桑斯（微衰老操控策略）基金會的科技總監(jiān)，他在2009年合伙創(chuàng)建了這一基金會。

他把衰老描述為周身各種分子和細胞的損傷在一生中的累積。

他解釋說：“我的想法是在你體內(nèi)的分子和細胞損傷積累達到致病程度之前就定期去做修復(fù)，你們可能將這稱為預(yù)防性老年醫(yī)學(xué)。”

對某些人而言，能活上幾百年的前景并不是特別吸引人，因為它讓人想起一代代社會日益無法承載的病弱老人們。

不過德•格雷說，長命百歲不是他的奮斗目標，預(yù)防致命老年疾病才是他主要的工作重點。

他告訴路透社說：“這絕對不是要讓人們病歪歪地活著，而是要防止人們患上老年疾病。我們所鉆研的特殊療法所帶來的長壽人生只是健康狀況改善的附帶影響。”