The Future of Ageing: prevention, reversal and palliative care

Letter to Atul Gawande and others:

All human invention is mimicry. The prototypes are to be found in Nature. All scientific discovery is by dispensation. Mother Nature lifts Her veil to give a momentary glimpse. Human handiwork is then a muddled recollection.(Henri Poincaré, Jacques Hadamard et al )

I recently enjoyed watching your individual TED talks : David Sinclair's - A Cure for Ageing; Aubrey de Grey's - Undoing Ageing and Atul Gawande's - How do we Heal Medicine?  (and  Being Mortal: What Matters in the end).

Hope. Defiance. Resignation.

Here's something that may provide another perspective on the subject of Ageing.

On a bell curve, outliers could in fact  be precursors of another population set. Dr Sinclair's projection of a possible human lifespan of 150 years is attested by the life of one Shri Chand, who was born on September 8, 1494 and 'died' (disappeared) in 1629 or 1643 . In ripe old age, he is reported to have looked like a 12 year old. And not the 'second childishness' of Shakespeare's Seven Ages, "...and mere oblivion, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything" . But rather completely compos mentis.

What was his secret?

Assuming he wasn't getting daily doses of Resveratrol , then there must have been some other means  to Shri Chand's youthful ripe old age.

Ayurveda, traditional Indian medicine, gives a possible clue. Vriddhavastha - the later stages of life - has been well-studied and the prevention, management and treatment of Ageing has been documented (see National Institute of Health - Concept of Ageing in Ayurveda) . Unsuprisingly, diet has a large part to play and indeed Shri Chand is said to have been an ascetic and so may have practised some form of  caloric restriction.

Additionally, Shri Chand was a yogi and meditated. Again, there's evidence of the anti-aging effect of this. Here's an excerpt of a neuroscience piece in a 2014 issue of Scientific American (redacted to avoid advocating a particular practice)

"Some evidence even exists that <blank>—and its ability to enhance overall well-being—may diminish inflammation and other biological stresses that occur at the molecular level. A collaborative study between our group and one led by Perla Kaliman of the Institute of Biomedical Research of Barcelona showed that one day of intensive <blank> in <blank> turned down the activity of inflammation-related genes and altered the functioning of enzymes involved with turning genes on and off. A study by Cliff Saron of the University of California, Davis, looked at the effect of <blank> on a molecule involved with regulating the longevity of a cell. The molecule in question was an enzyme called telomerase that lengthens DNA segments at the ends of chromosomes. The segments, called telomeres, ensure stability of the genetic material during cell division. They shorten every time a cell divides, and when their length decreases below a critical threshold, the cell stops dividing and gradually enters a state of senescence. Compared with a control group, the <people> who showed the most pronounced reductions in psychological stress also had higher telomerase activity by the end of the <experiment>. This finding suggests that <blank> might slow processes of cellular aging among some <people>."

However, diet, exercise and meditation may still not account for  Shri Chand's longevity.

We could look at other examples of longevity in the natural world to see what clues that gives. We could look at trees, more specifically giant Sequoia trees that have greeted the sun daily for 3,500 years(longer than before the time of Christ). Without delving into the wonder of the trees' natural hydraulic lift that is able to draw nutrients from the roots and send it up to heights of some 83meters to nourish leaves, suffice to say that the sap rises.

Compare the trees capillary system to the human CNS (central nervous system). The CNS looks like an inverted tree with the roots in the brain. A transverse of the limbic system reinforces this view. But is there functional similarity? There are opiate receptor sites in the limbic system and if human beings weren't designed to be drug addicts (κ₂ opioid receptors & drug addiction) why are the receptors located there?

Pursuing this comparison with the tree, if the limbic system is a drawer of nutrients, similar to a trees roots, then what is the equivalent of 'sap' for humans and what is the mechanism for it's uptake (or rather downtake - with an inverted tree structure, the sap would descend) ?

The form of yoga practised by Shri Chand is not detailed, but given the tradition of secrecy surrounding esoteric knowledge at that time , we can be sure that it was not vanilla ashtanga yoga but an 'internal' or hidden yoga or 'alchemy - the practise of turning base metal into gold ' . This points to 'Kundalini yoga/meditation' . A verse from an  ancient text - Shri Lalita Sahasranama ( The 1000 names of the Goddess) describes the Kundalini in these terms:

* 106 * Sudha sarabhi varshini - She who makes nectar flow in all our nerves from sahasrara i.e. she who gives the very pleasant experience of the ultimate 

So there it is. 'Sudha' in sanskrit means nectar or ambrosia - 'food of the gods' in greek mythology. 'Sahasrara' is the 'thousand-petalled' lotus at the crown of the head ie limbic system. And the fact it gives a 'very pleasant experience' hints at a 'natural high' induced by a binding at opiate receptor sites.

In yet another verse Kundalini is described as:

* 745 * Jaradwanthara viprabha - She who is the suns rays that swallows the darkness of old age

So was Shri Chand a rare and non-repeatable example of longevity or a demonstration of the future potential of the mass of humanity?

In his lecture Aubrey de Grey suggested that Ageing was the problem most relevant today and he may be right but for a different reason  than the one  he may have had in mind.

A very wise old lady (whose photo is at the beginning of this email) once explained that Mother Nature is doing an evolutionary  upgrade of human beings. The last upgrade was from Neanderthals to Homo Sapiens. The two versions first co-existed then the older version was phased out ( Neanderthal extinction ). The mechanism Mother Nature is using is spontaneous en-masse awakening of Kundalini - experienced as a gentle cool breeze(Pneuma) at the crown of the head(Fontanelle). So Kundalini, which 'swallows the darkness of old age' is also the evolutionary trigger. And, lest it be thought that evolution is a process only occurring over thousands of years, Epigenetics would suggest otherwise (Epigenetic changes in Human Brain Evolution).

In Human Beings mark 2 , sickness and old age could be non-existent and, given that all evolution is a refinement of CNS, awareness and consciousness could be on another level . Oh, and by the way, there's a range of super-normal abilities predicated on Kundalini awakening, so literally, superhumans may be coming.