Living to 150 Following A Conversation Between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping

What is the natural lifespan of humans? Before modern medicine, better nutrition, and fewer threats from nature and other humans, and long before we started building shelters rather than hiding in caves, if we reached 30, we were old. Many died before the age of 5. Between 20 and 35% died before age 15, well into our reproductive years. Some survived to the age I am today, 76.

It wasn’t the natural death of our body’s cells that determined average lifespan back then. Rather, it was disease, malnutrition, predation and accidents that knocked us off fairly early in life. Some even managed to be super survivors, living into their 80s and 90s, but no one reached the century mark or the age of 969-year-old Methuselah.  In Genesis 17:17, Abraham fathers a child at age 100. The Bible’s interpretation of the age of Methuselah and other elders, as in Genesis 5:27, should have even the most devout questioning its veracity when describing human age limits.

While it is possible, if Abraham had lived to 100 and fathered a child, today, being a father in old age is a trend with Al Pacino, a father at 83, and Robert De Niro, at age 79. But they can’t beat Abraham.

I am 76 and look at myself, comparing how I appear to pictures of my parents at a similar age. There is no doubt I look younger than they, and it’s not because I wear blue jeans and Ts. Despite illnesses and stressors, according to my family doctor, I am in pretty good condition for my age, despite the consequences of COVID-19 and a knee replacement, which has equipped me with some artificial parts.

In the human body, our cells are time-limited by a natural programmed limit called apoptosis that leads to their individual deaths. Another phenomenon called the Hayflick limit identifies when a cell’s ability to keep on replicating stops. Doesn’t that suggest that perpetuity is impossible?

That’s what made the recent hot-mike musings between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, both age 72, somewhat insightful for two reasons. First, it identified their ambitions. Second, it showed how little they understood about the science of aging. Vladimir and Xi were caught talking about age 70, with the latter describing it as childhood. Xi mused that humans could likely live to 150 based on advances in science and technology in this century. Putin pointed to modern medicine, biotechnology, and organ transplants, stating that it was possible for humans like the two of them to “achieve immortality.”

For these two autocrats, does life begin at 70 and 72? Does this mean there will be no need for successors? No need for a rubber-stamp parliament or elections and presidential term limits. The Russian and Chinese people must be relieved to find out that their leaders are thinking well ahead with at least another 70 to 80 years of them at the helm.

The truth, however, is much different from the aspirational notions of these two. The longest recorded and verifiable human lifespan is 122 years. There are, however, delimiters, including the ability of the body to recover from stress and damage, and the prevention of age-related diseases such as cancer, heart disease, neurodegeneration, infections and organ failure.

Life enhancers such as regenerative medicine and organ transplants are still in their infancy, as are gene manipulation using mRNA and CRISPR. We have no idea how much these technologies and medical advances can extend average lifespan, although there is a medical consensus today that living to age 130 by the end of the 21st century is possible.

Peter Diamandis of XPrize fame, who is also a doctor, talks about Rapamycin, a drug that he takes once a week every other month, as a potential life extender. He follows a low-sugar, healthy food diet, along with the prophylactic use of Rapamycin and many other vitamins, minerals and supplements (75 in total), and is convinced it will add at least 20 years to the current average human lifespan, 73.4 years.

Parabiosis is another therapeutic technology that can use plasma or whole blood transfusions to treat medical conditions. It involves the sharing of whole blood or plasma from a younger donor to an older mouse. The results show that reverse aging characteristics result in the recipient.

Then there is the Lifespan Research Institute, a research institute dedicated to longevity and the re-engineering of the human body to end aging. The Institute is studying cell loss, tissue atrophy, nuclear and mitochondrial mutations, immunotherapy, and targeted ablation to eliminate the physical processes of aging and believes that if we tackle all of these, there is no reason our lifespan cannot extend to 1,000 years. When I first read about the Lifespan Research Institute’s research, I asked, “Will someone born in the 21st century be the first millennial?” Today, there are an estimated 935,000 living centenarians globally. By the end of the 21st century, that number is expected to range from 18 to 25 million.

Although an age limit of 150 still seems to be a stretch, maybe by applying artificial intelligence to human aging, we will find new ways to get us there if we want to. Or, maybe we will achieve Ray Kurzweil’s singularity, where human consciousness will meld with machines to achieve immortality and then aging will only be a state of mind, and not of body.