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Dr. Ed Park: Here's Why We Age - Could We Live Longer? (iHealthTube)
YouTube video by Dr. Ed Park (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnmznlQoS2I). Transcript is the auto-caption track — verbatim ASR, not a certified transcript.
We've talked before, you're obviously very involved in in studying aging in terms of our body. Why does it age? What what's exactly happening? And why does the limit seem to be 100 115 years? Um well, this is a controversial subject. I have my own strong opinions, but I think aging is not natural. Actually, I think it's a it's a byproduct of erosion of the tieumirs and stem cells. And that if you could keep them alive and healthy, the stem cells that is, by extending the tieumirs, then you wouldn't age. And so we have examples of this like in the lobster, which is 20% stem cell. Lobsters apparently are immortal. I mean, they have to shed their exoskeleton every few years, but they can just get bigger and bigger unless some red lobster guy finds them. So you can't I'm trying to get people to conceptualize the idea that aging is not normal. Our set point currently, you know, after the flood is 100 years or so. If you look at the actuarial tables, they're already projecting that the person to live to 120 or a lot of people are going to do that. So, it's not natural. And in fact, in nature, we have the experiment where if you have one copy, you'll die around 13 or 14 of old age. So, what would happen if we had more than one or the ability to use our two better? So um I think maximum lifespan on the one hand at with two copies no help is about 120 max 85 median but um that will push forward quite a bit in years to come. Talk about that a little more. Can we expect to see a large jump in life expectancy do you think in the in the near future? And I mean is that really a possibility? Yeah I mean I think that's already here again as evidenced by the actuarial insurance tables. But once you talk about these stem cell breakthroughs to give you custom replacement parts, then um you know it it's going to be negligible scinessence, a term that you know Aubrey Degra has made popular. Mhm. Which means the ability to live unless a Scottish Highlander chops your head off. Yeah. Yeah. You'll be good. You'll be good to go. So if some of these things happen, if we're able to regenerate parts, body parts through stem cell, I mean, what what age would we be at? I mean, do do we still get older? Do we still things break down? Or would we be feel like we're 25 forever? Um, it would depend on the quality of your existing parts and their maintenance. So, think of it like a a Corvette with um 800,000 miles on it. Was that driven to the ground or was it maintained every, you know, a couple thousand miles? So, that question chronological age is less relevant if you're biologically young, right? But um no one wants to be 100 and feeling like a 100. They want to be 100 and feeling like 21. So that's where I'm conceptualizing where we're headed where age is not is really just a number. I mean people say that age is just a number but those are usually old people who are trying to be in denial. But when we can make it truly just a number then