Life extension

For other uses, see Life extension (disambiguation).

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Life extension is the concept of extending the human lifespan, either modestly through improvements in medicine or dramatically by increasing the maximum lifespan beyond its generally-settled biological limit of around 125 years.[1] Several researchers in the area, along with "life extensionists", "immortalists", or "longevists" (those who wish to achieve longer lives themselves), postulate that future breakthroughs in tissue rejuvenation, stem cells, regenerative medicine, molecular repair, gene therapy, pharmaceuticals, and organ replacement (such as with artificial organs or xenotransplantations) will eventually enable humans to have indefinite lifespans through complete rejuvenation to a healthy youthful condition (agerasia[2]). The ethical ramifications, if life extension becomes a possibility, are debated by bioethicists.

The sale of purported anti-aging products such as supplements and hormone replacement is a lucrative global industry. For example, the industry that promotes the use of hormones as a treatment for consumers to slow or reverse the aging process in the US market generated about $50 billion of revenue a year in 2009.[3] The use of such hormone products has not been proven to be effective or safe.[3][4][5][6]

  1. ^ Turner BS (2009). Can We Live Forever? A Sociological and Moral Inquiry. Anthem Press. p. 3.
  2. ^ "agerasia". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
  3. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference AMA was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Holliday R (April 2009). "The extreme arrogance of anti-aging medicine". Biogerontology. 10 (2): 223–228. doi:10.1007/s10522-008-9170-6. PMID 18726707. S2CID 764136.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference PositionStatement was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Warner H, Anderson J, Austad S, Bergamini E, Bredesen D, Butler R, et al. (November 2005). "Science fact and the SENS agenda. What can we reasonably expect from ageing research?". EMBO Reports. 6 (11): 1006–1008. doi:10.1038/sj.embor.7400555. PMC 1371037. PMID 16264422.