Inmortales ¿a base de pastillas? (Salud)

inmortalidad Envejecer y morir es inevitable, nos dicen desde que llegamos al mundo, pero hay quienes no están dispuestos a aceptarlo. Cada vez más proyectos científicos e instituciones médicas investigan para lograr la tan anhelada eterna juventud. Y no mediante complicadas cirugías, sino a través de la producción de fármacos capaces de frenar el deterioro del paso del tiempo. ¿Lo veremos algún día? Chi lo sa. Ray Kurzweil, director de Ingeniería de Google, experto en ciencias de la computación, músico, empresario, escritor y científico es uno de los popes de la tecnología. La revista Forbes le considera “la máquina de pensar suprema”. Se dice que su capacidad de predicción de los avances futuros es abrumadora: desde 1990 ha hecho más de 150 pronósticos con un índice de acierto del 86%. Este visionario estadounidense cree que en quince años la inteligencia artificial superará a la humana, y él espera estar ahí para verlo. Porque el inventor del escáner para ordenador y el sintetizador de texto a voz está convencido de que puede alargar su vida con pastillas. Diariamente ingiere unas 150, lo que le supone un gasto de 1,3 millones de euros al año. Cada jornada, Kurzweil paga más de dos veces el salario medio de una familia española en su búsqueda de la inmortalidad. Esta le lleva, suponiendo que toma una píldora cada 30 segundos, 90 minutos al día, un tiempo según él bien aprovechado: a sus setenta años, Kurzweil asegura que tiene una edad biológica de cuarenta. Utiliza el código CIENCIADIGITAL y obtén tu descuento en Muy Interesante, sigue con este link https://bit.ly/3TYwx9a Déjanos tu comentario en Ivoox o Spotify, o escríbenos a [e-mail] ¿Nos ayudas? Comparte nuestro contenido en redes sociales . Texto: Miguel Angel Sabadell Dirección, locución y producción: Iván Patxi Gómez Gallego @ivanpatxi Contacto de publicidad en podcast: [e-mail]

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Ageing and dying is inevitable, theytell us since we came into the world,
but there are those who are unwillingto accept it. More and more
scientific projects and medical institutions are researchingto achieve the long- awaited eternal youth,
and not through complicated surgeries, butthrough the production of drugs capable of
curbing the deterioration of the passage oftime. We' ll see some day

(00:28):
the podcasts of very interesting, greatreports of very interesting. It presents the
pills of immortality, a text byMiguelÁngel Sabadeira. Ray cars Well,

(01:02):
Google' s engineering director, computerscience expert, musician, entrepreneur, writer,
and scientist, is one of thepops of technology. Forbes magazine considers
him the supreme thinking machine. Theirability to predict future developments is said to
be overwhelming. Since nine hundred andninety he has made more than one hundred

(01:23):
and fifty forecasts with a success rateof eighty- six percent. This American
visionary believes that in fifteen years artificialintelligence will surpass human intelligence and he hopes
to be there to see it,because the inventor of the computer scanner and
the text- to- voice synthesizeris convinced that he can extend his life

(01:46):
with pills daily ingests about one hundredand fifty, which is an expense of
one comma three million euros a yearthat Cartswill pays more than twice the average
salary of a Spanish family in theirquest for immortality. This leads him to
assume that he takes a pill everythirty seconds ninety minutes a day, a

(02:07):
time according to him, well takenadvantage of at his seventy years, cars
Well assures that he has a biologicalage of forty. A normal day begins
for him with a ration of thirtypills and a breakfast consisting of Vayas,
an infusion of chocolate and coffee,smoked salmon, mackerel, soy milk,
vanilla, stevia, a plant thatis used as a sweetener, porridge and

(02:29):
green tea its nutritional advisor. Itis the doctor Terry Grosmann, who has
a clinic of rejuvenation in red andwith which he half affirmed the transent book
The subtitle says it all nine stepsto live well forever, but how to
start with a healthy diet more countlessvitamin supplements that help to repair the damages

(02:50):
that the irremediable passage of time causeour organism. For example, a generous
recipe for agetile le carnitine that saysstrengthens the mitochondria responsible for cellular breathing and
reduces inflammation of brain tissue. Bothauthors, who are Jews recommend Israel breakfast
that includes humus sofeta, cucumber salmonand red and green pepper while turmeric a

(03:15):
species that possesses anti- inflammatory agentsand is thought to help fight cancer and
Alzheimer' s. Of course,you also have to exercise, not drink
alcohol, not smoke and get checkedregularly and buy the batch of dietary supplements
they recommend. Among the substances necessaryto attain immortality. These two promoters of

(03:46):
eternal youth include integral multivitamins or abovequdiez, grape seed extract, resveratrol,
cranberry extract, lycopene, silymarin,acid, flax, leic, lecithin,
nctil, cysteine garlic carnitine, pirodoxalxv phosphate, a form of vitamin B
six equine, chromium, met morphine, gimma, wild and polycosane. The

(04:11):
vegetable gogolipid resin sterols or hacin savedfrom oats, grapefruit powder, sillium,
lecithin lipitor a scene to lower cholesterol, arginine betaine or TMG, choline growth
hormone folic acid, vitamin B sixintravenous lutation, a cocktail of vitamins that
beauty centers apply to their customers toget a lighter skin, phosphatidil, intravenous

(04:31):
hill and a long etcetera. Acharacteristic of the Carswell and crosman diet is
that it contains polyphenols in abundance.According to Barry Sers of the Infamation Resears
Foundation, this group of molecules canactivate the gene anti- aging sirt one

(04:57):
to slow down the process of decay, which is the best medicine to fight
obesity, chronic diseases and inflammation ofthe brain. Their anti- aging properties
were discovered by a group of scientistsled by David Sinclair of Harvard School of
Medicine, when they realized that oneof these elements, resberatroll managed to make
the yeast commonly used in the kitchenlast longer. This polygenol abounds in red

(05:23):
wine and exerts a protective effect againstcancer, therosclerosis and other age- related
diseases. There are also polygenols inthe fruit, vegetables and leaves of green
tea that once dry are formed inthirty percent by these molecules and for the
joy of the greedy also in chocolate. For a few years now, in

(05:47):
the United States there has been anobsession with anti- aging pills to the
point that a new coach profession ofanti- aging has emerged. One of
the most famous is the twenty-five- year- old bodybuilder, Pedy
Mangan, who has designed an anti- ageing program based on sixteen goals that
include sleeping well lower iron levels and, of course, more than fifty pills

(06:11):
a day. Do not season chickenbreast with turmeric better a curcumin pill with
eighty milligrams of aspirin to avoid heartproblems threads so necessary fatty acids. Omega
three and six. Mangan left thefish aside and went straight to the fountain
a boat. In the 21st century, the elixir of eternal youth is sold

(06:33):
as parapharmacies. It is no wonderthat the most concerned about aging are people
like Manga and Carswell, who alreadyface the last stage of their lives.
Few possess the sharp end of theFrench actor Die Valer who, when asked
if he regretted having turned seventy-five, replied no. If the alternative

(06:55):
is taken into account, we allage. Some of you fear others it
bothers us, but, as GrouchoMars said, to get old, all
it takes is to live long enough. Aging expresses a decline in the functions
of the organism. Decreases weight atthe expense of muscle mass, bone and
noble tissues, Fat and other fillingtissues can increase, leading to loss of

(07:17):
strength, clumsiness of movement, anddeterioration of joints. Memory is lost,
speed of reaction, self- confidenceand ability to plan the future. It
' s running out. Reproductive capacityand sexual function declines without possibility of remounting.
The stomach, lung, and kidneysare starting to cause serious problems.

(07:41):
Regeneration of tissues slows down and woundsslow to heal. For its part,
the immune system becomes lazy and webecome more sensitive to infectious diseases. And
not only that. From the ageof forty, the incidence of cancer doubles
every nine years. Over eighty-five, thirty percent of the population has

(08:03):
had or has a malignant tumor.Seventy- five percent suffer from three to
nine chronic diseases and fifty percent cannotstand for themselves. No wonder many want
to find a way to avoid allthis. Getting old isn' t fun.
Jardiel Poncela expressed it in a greatway. The tragedy of old age

(08:26):
is not being old, but beingyoung. It is curious to discover that
this chemical obsession with immortality or betterfor eternal youth has a long tradition.
The first references come from China,where the alchemists sought until the year five

(08:48):
hundred of ours what they called thepill of immortality, an elixir capable of
conferring what his name promises. Supportedby emperors and the nobles of the country.
The alchemical tradition in China is dividedinto two different schools. One advocated
Locarswell' s style by using substanceswas the school of the outer pill.

(09:09):
The other, more intimate, saidthat immortality could be achieved through a series
of mental, dietary, respiratory,and sexual practices. In Europe. The
first scientist who claimed to have foundher. He was the Frenchman Charles Edward
Brown Seccard, one of the greatpioneers of endocrinology. In June 1880,

(09:30):
he reported on the results of hisexperiments to an expectant audience at the Paris
Society of Biology. The emotion wasfelt among the audience attentive to the imposing
figure of the lecturer, who measuredone meter ninety. Brown Seccard started his
talk. I have always thought thatthe weakness of the elderly is due in

(09:54):
part to the decreased function of theirsex glands. I' m seventy-
two. My natu vigor has declinedconsiderably over the last decade and continued to
describe that he had lost both hissexual vigor and his physical condition. He
then explained that on the 15th ofMay he had crushed a dog cub'
s testicle and injected the remaining liquidinto his leg. Later he had done

(10:18):
the same on two occasions with testiclesof guinea pigs. After the injections,
his strength had increased dramatically and hedropped the bomb. I have rejuvenated thirty
years and today I was able topay a visit to my young wife.
Impressive. The source of eternal youthwas in the gonads of dogs. The

(10:43):
impact of these revelations was immediate,not only because of the prestige of the
scientist or because he himself would havetasted it in his body. Given that
the average age of members of thebiology society was seventy- one years,
it is no wonder that there wasmore than pure scientific interest in the Conference,
the Lematán newspaper launched a campaign toraise money in order to create a

(11:03):
rejuvenation institute. Brown Seccard gave himselfin body and soul to the great project.
As if from a production factory.In series the dog testicles would be
treated in one side and the pocymeof eternal youth would come out on the
other. Never in history have somany people had so much interest in cradills,

(11:24):
but time took care to put thingsin place. A Viennese newspaper commented
with socarronería. The Conference should beseen as further proof of the need to
retire teachers who had reached the ageof seventy. Brown Seccard went from being
a respected scientist to becoming the laughingstockof all and despite possessing the ground of
immortality, his wife abandoned him bya younger man who the older than sixty

(11:48):
of today become obsessed with dietary supplements, as did those of the late nineteenth
century with dog testicles. It shouldmake us think of the quest for the

(12:09):
pen of immortality. He took anothertour of Turk in March of two thousand
seventeen, when it was announced thata magic molecule could have been found capable
of repairing our genome of errors thatappear as a product of age. A
team from the University of Wales cameto that conclusion after doing a series of
studies on mice. According to them, the key is the molecule responsible for

(12:30):
protecting DNA from external damage such assolar radiation is called NAD plus. It
' s found naturally in our cellsand we' re losing it when we
get old. What Welsh scientists foundis that a precursor to that molecule,
nicotinamide mono nucleotide or NMN, improvesthe ability of cells to repair DNA.

(12:56):
The cells of an old mouse wereindistinguishable from those of a young SNS.
After a week of treatment, DavidSinclair, the lead author of the article,
claimed, has appeared in Nature magazine. We are close to getting a
safe and effective anti- aging drugthat will be on sale within three to
five years. If the tests gowell. The researcher said clearly that Sin

(13:18):
Claire was not aware that the marketis the market and in less than six
months began to sell nmn pure atninety- six percent at the price of
one hundred euros. The bottle ofsixty tablets the reference population Bureaud a private
organization founded in one thousand nine hundredtwenty- eight. It foresees that the
percentage of the population over sixty-five years of age will increase from the

(13:39):
current fifteen percent to twenty- fourpercent by two thousand sixty. Like such
a vaticinium. It is clear thataging is not only a field of fashion
in science, but is already becominga thriving business. Brown Dry must be
stirring in the grave. One thatis clear is the Belgian physician Eric Berdin,

(14:01):
president and first executive of the Buckingstitutefor richarts On Egging, the world
' s largest private research center dedicatedto studying the causes of aging and how
to combat them. We will notbe surprised to learn that neither Berdin nor
the other members of the board ofdirectors are 60 years old. But,
according to this expert, research madnessin this field arose in the 1990s,

(14:24):
when scientists realized that aging was notinevitable. If it occurs because of genomic
problems, the solution is reduced tofinding restorative proteins and turning them into sellable
drugs. If there are ways toregulate the deterioration process, it means that
there are proteins and that means thatover time, drugs can be developed.

(14:48):
Now, Berdin has not lost hissense. If you hear the word immortality,
don' t listen. There isno medicine that can provide it.
The best way to maximize life expectancyis to keep a healthy body with good
nutrition and exercise, which are amazinganti- aging drugs. Of course,

(15:15):
a lot of people are more.From the opinion of the writer Oscar Wilde
would do anything to recover the youth, except to exercise, get up early
or be a useful member of theCommunity. Everything has a price. If
we want to live longer, weshould start by reducing food intake. Living
more means eating less and less appetizingforget about fried eggs with chorizo and pass,

(15:39):
broccoli and steam. The promise ofa pill of eternal youth, because
what is sought is not to livelong as an old man, but with
the vitality of a young man.It has caused many companies to launch a
search in recent years. Here itgoes beyond the veneer and paint promised by
cosmetic companies. In a thousand nineit was discovered that the rapimicin product of

(16:03):
the extreptomycs and hygroscopicus bacteria, laidin a thousand nine hundred and sixty-
five by a group of Canadian researchersin a sample of Señuelo of Easter Island,
was able to prolong the life oflaboratory mice. This compound was first
isolated in a thousand nine hundred andseventy- two and began to be used
as an antifungal until its immunosuppressive capacitywas discovered. Since then, it has

(16:26):
been used to prevent rejection of transplantedorgans, especially the kidney, and to
treat certain cancers, such as pancras. In two thousand fourteen, the company
Ceutic form Novartis did its first studywith the drug Berolimous derived from this compound,
to determine if it improved the abilityto respond to flu vaccines in older

(16:48):
than sixty- five years. Itwas a success, increasing immunity by 20
percent. This gave the exit gunto a new direction. So far it
has been found that it prolongs thelife of worms, flies and rodents,
who live twenty- five percent longerif they are fed with rap and micina

(17:08):
and now a study has been launchedto check their effectiveness. In dogs of
these results motivated the forty- eight- year- old American entrepreneur, Duff
Netzoar, founder and first executive ofPirte Health, to announce in two thousand
seventeen and her intention to license twomolecules derived from that of Novartis, along

(17:32):
with the rights to implement them withdiseases related to aging. To that end,
he has created the restorbian company thatwants to test whether Heberolimus is able
to rejuvenate immune system cells. Butthis effort, like that of the rest
of the biotechnology companies in hunting forthe pill of immortality, has a major
regulatory obstacle. Human aging is notconsidered a treatable disease, so the legal

(18:00):
path to testing a medicine is complicated. But this does not appeal to venture
capital investors. In two thousand thirteen, Google and Arthur Levinson, biochemist and
president of Apple founded Chalico, whichpartnered with the pharmaceutical company by E.

(18:22):
They invested$ 1 5 billion tocreate an anti- aging research laboratory.
In two thousand sixteen and Unity BiezTechnologys, whose business objective is to eliminate
old cells from our body through drugs, something he wants to start doing.
In two thousand twenty he managed toraise$ 127 million for his investigations.

(18:44):
And there are more similar initiatives suchas Gero Human long Jevity, founded by
one of the decryptors of the humangenome, Craig benter In, Silicom Medisigne
and Mounttan Biotechnologys. But what wouldhappen if one day these companies succeed and
we managed to live five hundred yearswith a wave youth four hundred and fifty.
I' m sure social security wouldgo a thousand wonders, but we

(19:07):
' d be willing to work thosefour and a half centuries and in the
same job we' d love andhonor our partner for so many years.
We would be more benevolent, morepatient, more understanding in having centuries to
learn or as the immortal strulbras ofJonathan Swift' s Gulliver, we would
become petty, vain and selfish beings. Perhaps we would be more careful with

(19:32):
the environment and natural resources. Itis not the same to steal from our
children as from ourselves, but wewould not progress more slowly. The reduced
nature of human life provides a certainsense of urgency. Heroes would disappear.
When a young man puts his lifeat stake for helping someone or defending his
country, he risks fifty years oflife. I' d think the same

(19:52):
if you played four hundred and fifty. Illnesses and accidents are always terrible,
but perhaps then they were more terrible, as they would strip us of not
dozens, but hundreds of years oflife. Perhaps eternal youth is not as
desirable and, as Schopenhauer said,longing for immortality is wanting to perpetuate a
tremendous error. Thank you for listeningto the very interesting podcasts