Immortality for some of us?

I can tell you two things with absolute certainty. 

First, the good news. Stanford University scientists have published a simple therapy that, in less than 48 hours, makes old human cells 15 years younger. This isn't just slowing down or stopping aging. It's actually reversing it! 

Now, the bad news. Although this therapy will probably be on the market within five years, Americans will still die young from the same lifestyle diseases that are killing them today.

If they don't die in an accident, everybody in the US dies of lifestyle diseases. If we all died of old age, we would live to to be between 110 and 130 years old. We kill ourselves with our lifestyle choices. Smoking, overeating, drugs (including pharmaceuticals), lack of exercise, and most importantly, stress.

This therapy will definitely reverse aging at cellular level, but it won't reverse the fatally bad health that comes from poor lifestyle choices and stress.

Why have I written this? Well, I can see a solution ahead.

Before we begin, let me tell you a story. Back in the day, I built an idea into a national computer company, with its own technology, manufacturing, and marketing and maintenance across the US. I used to go to trade shows (IBM Big Systems users) and talk about all kinds of things.

One day, some years ago, I was walking down Market Street in San Francisco with friends, and this man walked up to me. I didn't recognize him, but he recognized me.

"Are you Richard Hamilton - Gibbs?", he asked, looking somewhat amazed at the possibility.

"Yes", I replied, perplexed.

He told me he was just visiting the City. He continued.

"I heard you talking at a trade show, about six years ago, At the time, I thought everything you said was absolute rubbish. But then, over the past six years, it has all happened". 

I have no idea what the topic was that particular day, but this is not an uncommon occurrence in my life. I pay attention to what's going on. I do my homework. I make interesting connections with the information I gather. 

So read on. If you have a vision of an alternative future, I'm all ears. I'm always learning.

The future

A real-world telomere therapy for the masses is not far away. My estimate is it will be available, somewhere in the world, within 5 years. The first pioneers in this business will be addressing that segment of the population with the most money, middle-aged and older people.

This new telomere therapy will begin in those countries that are already encouraging 'Medical Tourism' as a major contributor to their economies. The business opportunity is simply too spectacular, and the benefits to the early marketers is going to be game-changing for their national economies.

The Big Story that the media has ignored

Back in 2010, a new therapy turned old mice back into young mice. Their wrinkles disappeared, they grew a glossy coat, and they started breeding again.

On January 22nd, 2015, Stanford University researchers published a landmark scientific paper which outlined a very simple therapy. that took less than 48 hours, and made human cells 15 years younger.
When you read this abstract, you will see the opening line says "Telomere extension has been proposed as a means to improve cell culture and tissue engineering and to treat disease."

The reason the authors don't discuss regeneration is because there is no FDA category for therapies that restore youth. Also, this is a political hot potato. When the issue is raised that we could all live indefinitely, the first thought is, if nobody dies, there will be more people on the planet than we could possibly feed or house within a hundred years.

But the master-key for humanity (and all animal life) to continue to live indefinitely has now been demonstrated beyond all doubt. Pandora is not going to be put back in her box.

It's like the Wright Brothers. Once they had shown that powered flight was possible, other aviation pioneers joined in, using the fundamental design principles to create their own winged contraptions.

But it's also not like the Wright Brothers. Now that the path to living in youthful health indefinitely has been unlocked, the first country to introduce telomere therapy that works can expect to make in excess of $100 billion in their first year. In 2010, Thailand earned $42 billion from medical tourism. They could triple this instantly. The incentives are there.

The Wright brothers never had it this good!

The History, and the Science

Each cell in our bodies has a set of 23 chromosomes, which contain the information to create our clone, a perfect copy of ourselves. The chromosomes also determine what each cell in the body is supposed to be doing for our bodies to continue in good health. When a cell divides in two, it makes a copy of these chromosomes, so that each new cell contains a complete set of chromosomes. But there are changes, and these changes are the cause of aging.

In the early 1970s, Russian theorist Alexei Olovnikov first recognized that chromosomes could not completely replicate their ends. Olovnikov suggested that DNA sequences are lost every time a cell replicates, until the loss reaches a critical level, at which point cell division ends, and death occurs.

This created a rather baffling problem. If chromosomes were fraying away in all the cells in the human body, then that would mean that the sperm and egg cells would be frayed with age, and the resulting baby would have chromosomes that were as frayed and as old as their parents. The human race would have ceased in a generation.

Between 1975 and 1977, Elizabeth Blackburn discovered telomeres, which are a a series of repeating links (nucleotides) located at the end of each chromosome. These are not essential for producing the proteins and other cell components that are manufactured from the chromosomes' blueprint, but they fray away slowly each time a cell divides to create another  cell.

In a sperm or egg cell, the telomeres are approximately 15,000 links long, which is where we start at the point of conception. By the time the baby is born, the telomeres have already shortened to around 11,000 links. Throughout the rest of a person's life, they continue to shorten, until they reach 5,000 links long, at which point, that person dies of old age. 

But sperm and egg cells never have frayed telomeres. This mystery suggested that sperm and egg cells have something that re-builds their telomeres to their full length every time new sperm or egg cells were made. 

In 1984, Elizabeth Blackburn and her team discovered telomerase, an enzyme that was able to restore telomere length when cells in the reproductive organs made new sperm or egg cells. Every sperm cell and every egg cell are immortal before fertilization. However, once an egg has been fertilized by a sperm cell, the telomeres no longer rebuild. The aging process begins, and the telomeres start to  fray away every time a cell replicates.

Since 1984, genetic knowledge has grown explosively. Not only have we decoded the complete human genome, the new equipment available is doubling its performance every 18 months. The decoding of the first human genome took thousands of researchers some six years to complete, at a cost of billions of dollars. Today, that same task can be completed by one person, with one machine, in an afternoon, and in the next few years, the cost of decoding a complete human genome is expected to fall to around $100.

Today, we have tools that make it relatively simple to make these repairs. Now, we also know that telomere rejuvenation is possible in adult human cells, giving us all the ability to live as long as we want.


The reality? We choose to die young

Most Americans currently are not going to benefit from this therapy. Right now, almost all of us can expect to die from lifestyle diseases, not old age. To die of old age, we would be at least 100 years old.

Before the 20th century, it was common to die of infectious disease. During the 20th century, pharmaceutical science found solutions to the vast majority of diseases that afflict developed countries, and the expected lifespan has risen from 34 years to around 70 years.

Today, the diseases that kill almost every Westerner are lifestyle diseases.
Let me illustrate. Type II diabetes is curable, simply by changing diet, and doing exercise. Some 30 million Americans have Type II diabetes, and elect to take drugs instead. Currently, diabetics are eating up some 30% of all health expenditures in the US, and dying like flies!

Another one. Obesity, along with its fatal complications, has become epidemic in the US. 

Throughout the 20th century, life span kept getting longer. The statisticians now tell us that the American population is now so unhealthy (the pointers seem to indicate this is the result of poor diet and lack of exercise),  life spans are beginning to decrease. 

Do you want to live young for a thousand years?

Pretty ironic, isn't it? We discover the Master Key to extend human life for hundreds, or even thousands, of years, and then realize that, with all this fabulous technology, most of us won't make it because we haven't been dying of old age. It's the Good Life that's doing the damage.

Since the mid-1990's, tens of thousands of scientific papers have been published of dietary clinical trials. They have shown positive results for every ageing disease simply from changing diet. If you search for the word 'ketogenic', and follow it with any disease name, you will be amazed how much information you will find on every ageing disease from Alzheimer's to cancer.

Exercise has been extensively studied as well, both by the academic community, and also by sports medicine organizations. Peak performance is a national requirement for winning gold medals, and the dietary science that gets athletes to peak performance is a national secret. The point is, the combination of diet and exercise is the ultimate path to keeping our physical engines in shape to help as make it through the next hundred years.

We only need that hundred years. because long before it is over, we will have unlocked the secrets to living for thousands of years.

My amazing story

Back in 1996, I almost died. I was admitted to hospital with pneumonia, and then told I had a disease that was expected to kill me. My doctors told me that I could expect to be in hospital for at least three weeks.

I am blessed by having one friend who is the ultimate global resource on human metabolic processes. (When I helped him form a company in the 1980's, two Nobel laureates signed on to his scientific board of advisors without pay, because they considered him that brilliant. He is also fiercely private, so no names. I will call him AF, for Amazing Friend, OK?) For the next five days, he brought me my food. I ate none of the hospital's food offerings at all. And at the end of that 5 days, I was released, to the amazement of my doctors.

What I ate for that 5 days was a ketogenic diet. Just chicken broth, with coconut oil. Everything else tasted disgusting, but this was strangely OK. I didn't really feel like eating, but I drank this ketogenic soup when I was thirsty.

Since then, I have developed a vast array of ketogenic recipes. My AF tells me that I practice the ketogenic diet better than anybody he knows, so I am now writing a book about the ketogenic lifestyle.

Because, for me, it is a lifestyle. I eat well, on a tight budget. I exercise almost every day, and I don't feel guilty when I take a day off exercise. 

It's like that with my diet, as well. If I have a day off, it is not a 'cheat day'. It is a planned excursion, a vacation away, and it comes with no guilt whatsoever, thank you. :) Once a week, I enjoy pizza, maybe some ice cream, or some delicacy that contains carbohydrates. I am an excellent cook, as my friends will attest. My expectations of delicious are based on my own abilities in the kitchen. My key is, eat responsibly. I take small bites. I savor my food. I eat Godiva, not Hershey's. In tiny bites, in Present Time, enjoying every millisecond of sensation.

Life is all about enjoyment.

So how is my health? My doctor is simply amazed. I eat a high fat diet, yet my triglycerides are 38 mg/dL, the lowest she has ever seen. Every other blood test I have is right in the middle of the healthy range. I am 6 feet tall, and weigh around 160 pounds (twenty years ago, I weighed over 190).

I'm ready for the next 1,000 years! I'm excited! And I want to help all my friends come with me, because it is going to be pretty lonely out there, smiling in regret at those wonderful times with those wonderful people. I want this to keep happening forever.

By the way, if you want to come on this journey, leave me a message. I'm going to be doing a lifestyle series, and also do a YouTube channel. If you want to help, even better.