Abstract
The 20th century has witnessed a remarkable increase in the mean life expectancy of people in the developed countries. In the United States this increase amounts to about 25 years, or 50%. It is, however, widely recognized that the maximal human life-span, of about 100 years, has not changed at all during this period, and has possibly increased only marginally during the whole of recorded history. Most of the recent success in life extension was the result of the development of effective cures for infectious diseases, thereby greatly reducing mortality at young age. Significantly extending human maximal life-span by similarly curing “old age diseases” appears much more difficult because it is well documented (Kohn, 1963) that the mortality from almost any disease increases exponentially with age. Thus, even a small increase in maximal life-span, as a result of eliminating an “old age disease” will expose us to an ever-increasing number of new life-threatening diseases. Such strategy is, therefore, expensive and inefficient.
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Gafni, A. (1991). Altered Protein Metabolism in Aging. In: Cristofalo, V.J., Lawton, M.P. (eds) Special Focus on the Biology of Aging. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-38445-9_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-38445-9_7
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