Ordered to live a long time

Alla Astakhova, the magazine "Results", 15.07.2008

Charlie, Winston Churchill's pet parrot, outlived his master. A fragile bird, as if timeless, has been living somewhere in the silence of an English estate for more than a hundred years. Very few people reach that age. Russians have very few chances to "creak" up to a hundred: the average "survival age" in Russia is 69 years for men and 72 years for women. But it is difficult to call those who are approaching the centennial milestone lucky: most old people live out their lives in diseases and do not look like carefree birds at all... Is it any wonder that scientists are so interested in the "parrot phenomenon"? Who wouldn't want to live happily ever after! And, it seems, there has been success on the front of the fight against early aging. We asked gerontologists two questions: is there life after seventy? And how to make it so that you don't age longer?

Grow to ninety-fiveThe question of the duration of human life is not as simple as it seems.

What is considered the norm, and what is a deviation from it? Statistics don't help here. Analogies from the natural world also do not bring clarity. Scientists throw up their hands in disbelief. It seems that large animals usually live longer than small ones. But then why do parrots, crows and geese live longer than many mammals? At one time, it seemed that researchers had deduced a formula for life: its duration in many organisms is equal to the duration of the growth period multiplied by six. However, it soon turned out that there were too many exceptions to this rule. For example, a horse has a life expectancy 10-12 times longer than its growth period, a sheep has a ratio of one to three, a domestic goose has one to several hundred, a parrot has a life longer than the growth period by a thousand times. And it is unclear where a person should be in this row...

Maybe there is no such thing as maximum life expectancy at all? "Each species of organisms has its own life expectancy," says Vitaly Dontsov, head of the Laboratory of Gerontology at the Moscow State Medical and Dental University. – This is the same sign as, for example, body temperature or the number of heartbeats. If you change one attribute, others will change. Therefore, it is simply impossible to increase life expectancy. To do this, we need to create a new species with different genomes."

Mathematical methods came to the aid of scientists. Only by comparing the mortality charts of human populations in different regions of the world and calculating them according to a special program, the researchers got the result: 95 years. It is this age that corresponds to the specific duration of human life. Further, medicine is powerless: neither the efforts of doctors, nor the improvement of the environmental situation and living conditions do not give results. This is confirmed by the experience of Sweden and Japan, the countries that hold the record for the number of centenarians. Even there, people usually don't live longer.

However, most countries whose inhabitants have not achieved the longevity prescribed by nature have completely different problems. What prevents people from living out their own? Poor ecology, diseases, injuries, excessive loads, wrong lifestyle. "As a result, as, for example, in today's Russia, people themselves steal 25-30 years of a full life," says Vyacheslav Krutko, director of the National Gerontological Center. Is it possible to catch up? Mathematical calculations have shown that the indicator of life expectancy in certain regions and even population groups is not a constant value and can change over months. So, there is hope: if you really use the knowledge about the laws of aging, you can return the lost decades. In order not to grow old quickly, you need to grow old wisely.

In fas and in profileThe first thing that scientists have found out, moving in this direction: the vital functions of the body fade unevenly.

To understand why, we will have to turn to the philosophy of nature. "It is we, the people, who believe that birth and death are equally important,– says Dontsov. "That's not how nature and evolution reasoned at all." The more carefully gerontologists compared the life cycles of different animals, the more convinced they were: for evolution, only a certain period of an organism's life matters, namely the time when it is able to give offspring. "It is essential for nature that then all body systems work smoothly and harmoniously: this is important for procreation," says Dontsov. – Then discord and imbalance begin. One biological program continues to work, another goes haywire, the third stops altogether. Here it is, old age! This, by the way, explains the large variation in the life expectancy of animals. Nature, choosing these terms, seemed to have spread the bones: you live a year, you are fifty, and you are a hundred years old. She doesn't care."

But if nature doesn't care, won't people be able to interfere in its work and adjust the delicate balance of the systems of an aging organism? After all, then a person would have a chance to stretch in good health to the cherished ninety-five... Mathematics came to the aid of gerontologists again. And from an unexpected side. "Today there are more than two hundred theories of aging,– says Vyacheslav Krutko. – And none of them is comprehensive. Think for yourself: even a car ages in different ways: tires are erased, the body is subject to corrosion... Each such thing requires its own prevention. So why should we think that human aging has a single mechanism?" The scientists acted like car mechanics in some super-workshop equipped with computer modeling tools. Having identified in detail the mechanisms of aging, which are expressed in a decrease in vital functions, they compared them with the help of mathematics and revealed the degree of influence on the body.

This is how the "aging profiles" turned out – they reflect the main reasons that make our biological programs "break down". Someone lacks motor activity, which means, first of all, his muscles age and coordination of movements is lost. Someone is getting old from nervous stress – the theory of chronic stress is one of the popular theories of aging. Well, someone's diet is simply not balanced: hence the accumulation of unnecessary substances in the body (recall the banal deposition of salts, common in the elderly), and the lack of antioxidants (the free radical theory of aging is also very popular). The concept of biological ages arose – it turned out that they can be different in different body systems. So, in the calendar 30 years, we can be physically developed for forty, have a vital lung volume corresponding to twenty-five years, and hearing for our thirties... There are types of aging that have been spreading like an epidemic lately. For example, many residents of modern cities have a dramatically aging cardiovascular system. Express diets can also age us. "Of course, fullness in itself did not benefit anyone, the body mass gain index is also an indicator of biological age," says Vitaly Dontsov. "However, it is possible to lose weight for a short period of more than five kilograms with the same consequences as getting better: the body is aging, its functional capabilities are decreasing."

Rejuvenating appleThe question arises: why should a person determine his biological age?

Is it really in order, like a senile coquette, to sigh over every extra wrinkle? Not at all. Gerontologists' data show that biological age is not a sentence. Therefore, it is necessary to know it first of all in order to work on yourself. Some aging parameters are easy to adjust, others are not. For example, researchers believe that the plasticity of brain structures is still underestimated by gerontology. It is known that severe or chronic stress leads to a sharp aging of the body. But if you eliminate its cause, all the parameters characterizing age–related changes, as a rule, improve - a person objectively "gets younger". Physical indicators can also be corrected relatively quickly, but age-related hearing loss is unlikely to be removed: its cause is the death of neurons associated with the auditory analyzer.

However, in an effort to regain his former youth, it is important not to overdo it. "With age, a person's adaptive abilities decrease. Therefore, a fifty-year-old in any case cannot withstand the physical and mental loads that are suitable for twenty-year-olds for a long time. Then a sharp decline is sure to follow," says Vitaly Dontsov. – Everyone remembers the example of the elderly academician Amosov with his famous thousand movements. Later, he himself refused intensive exercises – unfortunately, we have not yet invented rejuvenating apples." Gerontologists consider another task more realistic. They propose using mathematical programs to harmonize the inevitable extinction of the functions of the human body so that their curves are as smooth as possible, without sharp drops, meaning that a person will spend the rest of his life as an eternal patient.

Therefore, scientists believe that prevention will help the best in the fight against aging. And for this, broad social programs are needed: physical education, "folk" sports, promotion of a healthy lifestyle and smoking cessation, sometimes special dietary supplements. There is already an interesting experience of this kind in different countries of the world. For example, in Finland, the mortality rate of men was unusually high compared to women. When scientists comprehensively studied the causes of this phenomenon, it turned out that there was a serious imbalance in the diet of local residents: one of the antioxidants, the trace element selenium, was missing, the deficiency of which especially affects the representatives of the stronger sex. When appropriate dietary supplements were introduced in this country, the situation returned to normal. Scientists believe that such programs would be promising in Russia. For example, the diet of Moscow residents also lacks selenium, and at the same time iodine and zinc, the lack of which can shorten a person's life. Other regions of the country have their own peculiarities. "These problems are usually well known," says Dontsov. – In any case, it will not be difficult to detect a lack of trace elements in the diet of some region. After all, you do not need to study the composition of food and water for this. It is enough to take a blood test from a person." Another dietary supplement that gerontologists insist on is folic acid. Due to an unbalanced diet, almost all Russians lack it. At the same time, its lack is one of the reasons for the development of atherosclerosis, "aging" our cardiovascular system. "So why not add this acid to bread or milk? – says Krutko. – It is estimated that the cost of a loaf of bread with such an additive will increase by only ten kopecks. And the benefit will be incomparable with the price."

However, even now gerontologists warn that our society will be able to really benefit from programs of this kind only if it thinks in advance how to find something to do and arrange in the lives of those to whom it will give an extra thirty years. After all, you can't sit on a bench all this time. Meanwhile, scientists promise that someday they will overcome the boundaries of the species and will be able, by reducing the rate of cell division in the body, to slow down human aging to two hundred years. Such experiments are now being conducted in Russia and in many countries of the world: we will definitely write about them later. But will bicentennial citizens get along in our world? Personally, I think that our society simply will not survive such a radical turn...

Portal "Eternal youth" www.vechnayamolodost.ru15.07.2008