What would you do if you could live forever?
I'm not sure what I would do, but at least another 100 years would be great. I would probably learn more languages, immerse myself in other cultures for long periods of time, try different careers. I would have a whole list of things I could do if I had even an extra 100 years.
I don't ask the question lightly either. There is good reason to ask it. We are getting very close to figuring this out. There are all kinds of doctors and scientists working on it right now. We met one such man. His name is Dr. Patrick Flanagan, and your probably wondering, has he figured it out?
Well, he thinks he has. He knows the secrets theoretically and he is one of the pioneers in telomere research, which is now the direction all anti-aging research is going.
What are telomeres? They are like the lifeline on our lives. Literally like a fuse that when it runs out, kills us.
What are they really? Imagine a shoelace with plastic tips on them. Telomeres are like the plastic tips on the end of our chromosomes and every time our cells divide they are shortened, until eventually they are worn out and the genetic information is left unprotected, our cells can no longer divide and we eventually die.
There is an enzyme, however, called telomerase that protects our telomeres from shortening. Only problem is we stop producing that enzyme by about age 12. Our cells only divide a certain number of times, known as the Hayflick Limit (about 40-60 times in most people) and then can no longer duplicate. This limit is reached in most people by about age 65.
What causes this limitation? It's the shortening of the telomeres. They are the caps on the ends of our chromosomes and once they are worn down to a certain critical point, our cells simply stop dividing because of it and we go into old age and die.
The Holy Grail of Medicine is to stimulate telomerase enzymes to protect our telomeres and allow us to live forever. It is now a recognizable fact of science that the human cell is capable of being immortalized. It is simply a matter of preserving our telomeres in order to allow continued, infinite cell division to repair and regenerate healthy cells indefinitely.
We are on the brink of physical immortality.
Click Here to Learn More about Dr. Patrick Flanagan and His Work.