I find majority of anti-aging articles to be way too optimistic. Consider the following:
We still cannot treat many well understood diseases, including tuberous sclerosis, allergies, asthma, etc.
We don't know the exact cause of multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, type 2 diabetes, etc, despite studying those diseases for decades.
We can't help you keep the color of your hair or regrow your missing teeth, despite tons of money dedicated to such therapies by the industry.
And articles like these talk about combating aging - a combination of development, damage, and likely an evolutionary mechanism, within 10-15 years. I cannot help but be skeptical.
Scepticism is healthy. That said, aging affects 100% of population and is lethal. The amount of funding & effort should be orders of magnitude larger than for any of diseases you mentioned.
I'm reading through Sinclair's book "Lifespan - Why We Age and Why We Don’t Have To" and I find it fascinating (especially the chapter on origins of life and proto-genes of aging). When Sinclair talks about time-scales, he makes comparison to cancer. During last 50 years medicine went from fighting symptoms to actually addressing source for some cancer types. The quote that stood out: "From looks of it aging is not going to be that hard to treat, far easier than curing cancer". Book's predictions may feel too optimistic to me, but I don't have any qualifications to make such claim against leading researcher in field.
The key is regrowing teeth and keeping hair colour..because that’s the crux of rejevenuation.
One of the crudest forms of medicine is dentistry. It’s a very brute force method of replacing lost parts. Teeth are the extension of our bodies and it’s connected to every aspect of life.
It’s similar to a living organ and is the sum total of our health. And what do we do with tooth loss? We replace it cosmetically and functionally.
We don’t see any other use for it. If we consider teeth regeneration like growing ourselves a kidney instead of a kidney transplant.(or heart), that would be the day anti ageing is in our sights.
But we have to first consider the problem and label it properly. It is known that plaque in teeth is indicative of heart plaque. Dental infections can get into the blood stream. Cavities point to other issues too. Dental health starts with gum health.
And yet..the remedy is not changing life style or eating habits or research into rejuvenation. But we knock them out and stick a ceramic one. Imagine if we stuck a silicone heart or a kidney like one would a breast implant. That’s the equivalent of fake teeth that is drilled and screwed to the jaw bone.
If we figure out how to regrow our teeth, half the battle is won.
IMHO, that's because to answer these questions, we need to research fields that are labeled as pseudoscience for no good reason. For example, no serious scientist who cares about career and reputation can study things like "animal magnetism" - he would be labeled a lunatic and get ousted from the community (no more grants, no more employment in academia). Plus the state of things in academia doesn't encourage big bets.
We still cannot treat many well understood diseases, including tuberous sclerosis, allergies, asthma, etc. We don't know the exact cause of multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, type 2 diabetes, etc, despite studying those diseases for decades. We can't help you keep the color of your hair or regrow your missing teeth, despite tons of money dedicated to such therapies by the industry.
And articles like these talk about combating aging - a combination of development, damage, and likely an evolutionary mechanism, within 10-15 years. I cannot help but be skeptical.