Is It Possible to Reverse Aging and Live Forever?

Below is an approximation of this video’s audio content. To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video.

My book How Not to Die was not about living forever. It was not How to Not Die, but rather How Not to Die, as in prematurely, in pain after a long chronic disabling illness. The good news I shared is that we have tremendous power over our health destiny, in that the vast majority of premature death and disability is preventable with a healthy enough diet and lifestyle.

How Not to Age has a similar premise. It is not about immortality, but rather how to age with grace and vigor rather than suffer from the ravages of infirmity and decrepitude. But why can’t we stop aging and live forever?

From the Epic of Gilgamesh over 4,000 years ago to the recent quincentennial of Ponce de Leon’s pursuit for the fountain of youth, humankind has yearned for the mythical elixir of life that would remedy the scourges of aging. And why not? It’s not like aging is some immutable constant in nature. Evolution has produced lifespans in animals that vary 5,000-fold, from those only living a few days to clams clocking in at over 500 years. Just like the Wright brothers may have taken inspiration from birds, we can take inspiration from animals who age slower, if at all.

Why can’t we live forever? Some animals do, and I’m not talking about a 200-year-old whale, or even a thousand-year-old tree. I’m talking about immortal. There are actually species (with names like the immortal jellyfish) who apparently don’t age, and could technically go on forever. And why not?

In a sense, humans are immortal, in that a few of our cells live on—sperm or egg cells lucky enough to find each other. Each of our kids grow out of one of our cells, and that alone—I mean, the fact that a single cell can grow into a person—should make, in comparison, the notion of keeping our bodies going indefinitely seem biologically trivial. One little fertilized microscopic blob turning into perhaps the most complex object in the known universe––the human brain, with its 86 billion neurons spanning 100,000 miles within your head, like four times around the equator, making 150 trillion connections. All emerging out of a microscopic speck of a blob. If that’s possible in biology, then what isn’t?

Still, there is much skepticism in the scientific community, where many believe aging is an irreversible process. ‘‘Anti-aging’’ is compared to being ‘‘anti-gravity.” Vocal critics in the gerontology community have accused those suggesting the possibility of greatly extended human lifespans as being “contemptible … for duping the public,” suggesting ‘‘anything past [age] 130 is ridiculous.” Such doubts are reliably countered by proponents who quote preeminent scientists of yore making similarly absolutist claims that did not age well. Nobel prize-winning physicists spoke of the prospect of nuclear power as ‘‘talking moonshine,” a “completely unscientific Utopian dream, a childish bug-a-boo.” Lord Kelvin, considered one of the greatest scientists of his time, notoriously asserted: “Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible”––evidently doubling down on their impracticality in 1902, just a year before the first flight at Kitty Hawk.

Already in the lab, genetic mutations can affect a 10-fold increase in lifespan, at least in a species of tiny worm. In mice, dietary and genetic manipulation yields more like a 70 percent increase. Single tweaks like methionine restriction (which is part of my Anti-Aging Eight tips) can extend the average and maximum lifespans of rats by about 40 percent, which could translate to boosting human lifespan to an average of around 110, with the rare centenarian hitting 140. These results have yet to be replicated in people, but if we discovered interventions to not only slow aging, but actively repair the accumulated damage, the sky could be the limit.

Starry-eyed scientists in the field imagine time could be effectively melted away, like that surrealist painting of drooping clocks, a “rejuvenation of your body leading ultimately to an endless summer of literally perpetual youth.”

A “longevity escape velocity” is envisaged, in which we would just have to live long enough for innovations to add more time than is passing––the tipping point at which each year we can add at least one extra year of life expectancy. This could theoretically enable humanity to have essentially unlimited lifespans. I remain agnostic as to whether such a breakthrough is possible, but I do hope my new book will help regardless, whether you’re striving to live long enough to live forever or just trying to die young, as old as possible.

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Motion graphics by Avo Media

• aging
• anti-aging
• How Not to Age
• How Not to Die
• lifespan
• longevity
• mortality