Can humankind really ‘live forever’?

TWO hundred years ago, at the dawn of the British-led industrial revolution, the global population stood at one billion.

Over the ensuing two centuries, fuelled by reliable hydrocarbons, mankind prospered and the planet’s population blossomed to eight billion, with life expectancy concomitantly rising from 30 to over 70.

And, now, as we become subsumed by the on-rushing AI tech revolution, many are wondering whether life expectancy could become infinitesimal.

It was undoubtedly a flight of twenty-something, ironic, hubris that inspired the Gallagher brothers, of Oasis, to pen their 1994 hit ‘Live Forever’.

But 30 years later, as the boomer generation once more gate-crashes established societal boundaries, that Oasis sentiment is gaining enormous traction.

Leading this longevity revolution are the ‘tech-titans’ such as Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, with his anti-ageing outfit Retro Biosciences, Amazon-founder Jeff Bezos, with Altos Labs, and Peter Thiel, and the Methuselah Foundation, which aims to make ’90 the new 50’ (1).

And, of course, Elon Musk. In a conversation at Davos this year with Laurence Fink, CEO of BlackRock and interim co-chair of the World Economic Forum, Musk expressed his belief that ageing is ‘very solvable’ adding: “I do I think we will figure out ways to extend life and maybe even reverse ageing – I think that is highly likely.”

In Dubai, last month, at a similar highfaluting gathering – the World Governments Summit (WGS) – Professor David Sinclair, of the Harvard Medical School’s Blavatnik institute, said that ‘Ageing is a medical condition that is increasingly treatable’.

And, referencing the recent approved FDA trials by his company Life Biosciences which aim to convert adult cells into pluripotent stem cells, he said: “We are about to test, for the first time in history, whether we can reverse ageing and cure diseases.”

This opinion is no longer an outrider. In response to a request from Agetech World we corralled thoughts and analysis from some of the planet’s leading longevity experts.

Miami-based Dr Halland Chen is a double board-certified Physician specializing in longevity medicine, cellular health, and biotech innovation.

Much of his recent work is focused on the potential of autologous mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) in delivering a fulfilling healthspan.

He said “I think there’s gonna be this, what we call a genetic ceiling…[and] this theoretically might be 120 to 130 years old. And ,then what happens? You can’t undo all the damage that’s been done to your organs, etc, over the preceding years.

“That’s why I focus so much on stem cells, because the answer is stem cells. It’s stem cells, it’s your hormones, it’s all the things that optimise the body into a healing state. So very much from my perspective of this, I think it’s about getting the body into a healing state.”

US chronic pain specialist Dr Matthew Bennett believes health-spans will improve over the coming years, however, there is a but.

“Whether lifespans will improve? We’re sure hearing they will. I think time will tell, though. I think we can get healthspans better; I think we can have people more functional until later ages, for sure.

“Will we live to 120, and beyond, like some people are predicting? I don’t know. I think it’s a guess. It’s easy to say that’s how it’s going to be because it sounds great and dramatic, but we’ll have to see how that plays out.

“The healthspan’s the most important thing.  We don’t want you living like a piece of jelly in a chair for 50 years. No, that’s just not a life anybody would want.

“From a medical perspective, it’s going to be really helpful when we can start putting all of the pieces together. We need way more computational ability and better testing – this concept of ‘multi-omics’.

With longevity now becoming a feature of the emerging Asian economies, the number of people on the planet aged 60, and over, will increase from one to two billion by 2050.

Prof Sinclair sees this as a major economic opportunity telling the WGS: “In the US, extending a healthy lifespan by one year could generate an estimated $38trillion in economic value by improving productivity of people.”

He also linked his research to global challenges, noting that declining fertility rates are reducing workforce numbers.

“There are two solutions, replace them with robots or keep them alive and healthy,” he said. “Our greatest asset is human productivity.”

Yet, in some established G7 countries such as the UK, healthy life expectancy has fallen to its lowest level since records began.

For the period 2022–2024, people born in the UK can expect just over 60 years of life in ‘good’ or ‘very good’ health – 60.7 years for men and 60.9 years for women.

In wealthier London suburbs, such Richmond-upon-Thames, residents can expect to have almost 70 years of good health, whilst in poorer Northern towns such as Blackpool, men will average barely 51.

This may well reflect the lack of economic growth in the UK with GDP flatlining in the last 20 years due to the country’s disastrous energy policies, whilst its embrace of low-skilled, mass, immigration has boosted the population to 70m from 59m, since the year 2000.

This has put huge pressure on the public services such as the schools and NHS; where most patients with chronic conditions have to wait months, even years to be treated.

This dichotomy between those who have and those who have not is something that plays on the mind of Dr Navani.

She added: “We may develop the best technology, but we are only able currently to get to the top 1% of people – those who are invested in their longevity-based advanced care – those who can afford it.

“I would love to see each and every person here in the United States, as well as overseas, to really get to know about these exciting advances.”

Consequently Dr Navani will shortly be publishing a book entitled ‘Code to Cure’, which will outline the emerging longevity and regenerative technologies available in an effort to democratise this specialist medicine for the wider public.

João Pedro de Magalhães, a professor at the UK University of Birmingham, is a prominent gero-scientist who has been interested in the ethics of longevity since 2003.

He agrees, saying “(On) the equality question – what if longevity drugs are so expensive that only billionaires can access them?”

With longevity treatments potentially out of the financial reach of the many, the 1994 flight of fancy of the multi-millionaire Gallagher brothers may not be so facile, for them, after all.