It is now generally accepted and considered normal that when a person lives a life of 70-80 years, 90 is already considered longevity. But how long should and can a person actually live, how long does his genetics allow? Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov, the great Russian physician, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1908), was absolutely sure that the natural duration of human life is 140-150 years, and death at 70-80 years is undoubtedly violent. Agreed with him and Alexander Bogomolets. In his “Etudes of Optimism”, Mechnikov pointed out that “in 1902 in Paris, for every 1000 deaths between 70 and 74 years old, only 85 people died of old age. Most old people died from contagious diseases: pneumonia and consumption, from diseases of the heart, kidneys or brain hemorrhage. Even the famous centenarians, the Englishman Thomas Parr (152 years old) and the Turks Zara Agha (156 years old) died not from age, but from diseases (the first from pneumonia, the second from uremic coma caused by prostate disease). The famous medieval physician Paracelsus believed that a person can live 600 years. Albrecht von Haller and Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland (scientists of the 18th century) considered the age of 200 years to be the limit of human life.
But in order to draw unambiguous conclusions, it is necessary to turn to the facts, how long real centenarians live, and how many of them there are on the planet! Li Qingyun was born in 1677 in Qijianxiang, Sichuan Province. He spent most of his life in the mountains of Sichuan, collecting medicinal herbs and learning the secrets of longevity. In 1748, when Li Qingyun was 71 years old, he moved to Kaixian to join the Chinese army as a martial arts teacher and military adviser.
In 1927, Li Qingyun was invited to Wanxian to the governor of Sichuan, General Yang Sen. The general was delighted with Lee's youthfulness, strength and skill at the latter's incredible age. During this visit, the famous photograph of the super-centenarian was taken. After this meeting, Li Qingyun returned to his native land and died 6 years later. There is a legend that before his death, he told his friends “I have done everything that I had to do in this world. I'm going home" and then expired.
After Li's death, General Yang Sen decided to find out the truth about his life and age. He made recordings that were later published. In 1933, people interviewed Lee's relatives and children. Some said that he was always old, as long as they can remember, others said that he was friends with their grandfathers. Other most famous centenarians:
Zoltan Petrij (Hungary) - 186 years old.
Peter Zortai (Hungary) - 185 years old (1539-1724).
Cantigern is the founder of the abbey in Glasgow. Known as Saint Mungo. Lived 185 years.
Tense Abzive (Ossetia) - 180 years old.
Khuddie (Albania) - 170 years old. His offspring reached 200 people.
Hanger Nine (Türkiye). Lived 169 years. Died in 1964.
Sayyad Abdul Mabud (Pakistan) - 159 years old.
Mahmud Bagir oglu Eyvazov (151 years old, 1808-1959) lived the longest in the USSR. Issued in his honor trademark . Colombian Javier Pereira lived to be 169 years old, and in his honor, as well as in honor of the aforementioned citizen of the Soviet Union, a postage stamp was issued in his country. A certain Jean Terel joined the French army in the 17th century and retired in the 19th. It seems incredible: he served in the army for three centuries. So how long did he live? Not so few, although not about three hundred, as it might seem. Jean Terel was born in Dijon in 1684, entered the army at sixteen, in 1699, at the close of the century. Participated in more than a hundred battles. In 1777, when he was 93 years old, King Louis XIV granted the old campaigner the rank of captain. In 1802 (Terel was already 118 years old), Napoleon found out about him. Contrary to the unwillingness of the long-lived veteran, he dismissed him in honorable retirement, appointing an annual pension of 1,500 francs. Jean Terel died in 1807, at the age of one hundred and twenty-three. An interesting case is described by English historians. In 1635 r. Thomas Parr, a peasant from the provinces, came to London to appear before King Charles as a miracle of longevity. Parr claimed to have outlived nine kings and was 152 years old. In honor of the centenarian, the king arranged a magnificent feast, after which Thomas Parr died suddenly. It was opened by the famous English doctor William Harvey, who discovered blood circulation. According to V. Harvey, Parr died of pneumonia, but, as legends say, the cause of his death was a plentiful treat at the king's table. Parr was buried with honors in Westminster Abbey. In 1654, Cardinal D'Armagnac, walking down the street, noticed an 80-year-old man crying. When asked by the cardinal who offended him, the old man replied that his father had beaten him. The cardinal decided to look at this man. He was introduced to an old man of 113, very vigorous for his age. “I beat my son,” said the old man, “for disrespect for my grandfather. He walked past him without bowing." The cardinal also saw his 143-year-old grandfather. Another extremely interesting fact is that in Abkhazia almost 3% of the population are centenarians, whose age exceeds 100 years. It is estimated that in 2000 there were 70,000 to 80,000 people aged 100 or over in the United States. In Cuba, for 11 million of the country's population, there are about 3,000 people who have crossed the centennial milestone. In Taiwan, as of October 2009, 1223 people over 100 years old lived in the state. Europe - According to the French weekly "Poin", France is currently the leader in Europe in terms of the number of centenarians. Centenarians who are over 100 years old, there are 2546 people here. France is closely followed by the UK with 2,450 people, followed by Germany with 2,197 people. If we take percentage indicators, the number of centenarians per 100,000 people, then here the championship belongs to Greece (18%). The second and third places belong to Portugal (6.3%) and Denmark (6%). But what about Russia? 200-300 years ago, many centenarians were also found in Russia. Now there are few of them in our country and in terms of life expectancy we occupy one of the last places in Europe. If you look into history, you can find quite a lot interesting facts about the long-livers of our country. Captain Margeret, who was hired to serve Tsar Boris, in his book The State of the Russian State (1606) wrote with surprise: “Many Russians live to be 90-100 and 120 years old and only in old age are familiar with diseases. With the exception of the king and the most important nobles, no one recognizes medicines. Feeling sick, a commoner usually drinks a good glass of vodka, pouring a charge of gunpowder into it, or mixing the drink with crushed garlic, and immediately goes to the bathhouse, where he sweats for two or three hours in extreme heat.
Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin in his memoirs tells about a meeting with a 160-year-old Cossack that took place in the steppes of the Orenburg region. The Cossack perfectly remembered the uprising of Stepan Razin (1667-1671), in which he himself took an active part.
Even now, in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, one can find the graves of people who were distinguished by unusual longevity: the silent monk Patermufiy, who died at the age of 126, the grave of the monk Abraham, who lived for 115 years, and the famous Elizabethan and Catherine's hero, 107-year-old V. R. Shcheglovsky exiled to Siberia by Potemkin out of jealousy.
At the beginning of our century, when the 100th anniversary of the defeat of Napoleon near Moscow was celebrated, the Russian press wrote about eyewitnesses and participants in the events of 1812, who continued to live and live well in 1912 - 108-year-old sergeant major Ivan Zorin, 111-year-old Nadezhda Surina, 139-year-old Rodion Medvedev.
A lot of available evidence suggests that in those distant times the population of Russia, due to its genotype, natural conditions and healthy diet had the opportunity to live a healthy and long life, living to an unusually old age, while maintaining clarity of mind and peace of mind. And today's sad state of affairs is obviously the result of a completely unnatural destructive lifestyle in an extremely aggressive artificially created habitat. In the photo - Li Qingyun, here he is already more than 200 years old.
How many people can live? Gerontologists say that people have already been born who will celebrate their 150th anniversaries, and over the next 20 years it will be possible to live 10 centuries.
How long to live?
Americans say about themselves that they are madly in love with sensations. Most likely, this is why the news that the Chinese Li Ching-Yun died at the age of 256 blew up America and became the most widely read.
The New York Times and Time Magazine wrote about it back in 1933. However, doctors are not inclined to believe this, and documents confirming this fact have never been found. But the very idea that someone lived for two and a half centuries still haunts dreamers of a long life.
On the other hand, many gerontologists are convinced that we live much less than nature allots us. The officially documented longevity record belongs to the Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment, who took her life lightly and "without worries." She lived for 122 years. Genetics have not found anything special in her body.
Who wants to live?
Popular science journalist David Ewen gathered an audience of all sorts of older people and asked what life expectancy they dream of - 80, 120 and 150 years, or even infinity. Most of the respondents answered that they are quite satisfied with the age of 80, and they often think of death as an inevitable event.
And this despite the fact that people have been provided with a lot of medicines and medical devices that can radically prolong life. Businessman Jun Yun, who was present at that meeting, voiced the real cost of longevity. It's about for a hundred or more years. In his opinion, even now it can cost no more than one million dollars.
Interestingly, most gerontologists believe that sincere love for life is prerequisite longevity, and the thought of death, like a smoked cigarette, reduces the data of nature of the year by a few minutes.
Medicines for life
Physician Laura Helmut claims that "we have a 50/50 chance that in the next 25 years we will bring mortality under a hundred years under control." She gave a personal example of how current advances in medicine affect life expectancy.
“My great-great-grandmother died at the age of 57, probably from a heart attack,” Laura Helmut shares her observations. My great-grandmother passed away at the age of 67 from a stroke. My grandmother takes medication for high blood pressure and high cholesterol. She will be celebrating her 90th birthday next week. She thus became the first person in my family to live long enough to see great-grandchildren. Prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease is a huge achievement in the field of longevity.”
The next medical victory, which will dramatically increase life expectancy, will be a complete cure for diabetes. This was reported by experts from Genetic Engineering Technology in the journal Science Translational Medicine. They managed to create antibodies that activate brown adipose tissue cells, utilizing fats and normalizing blood glucose levels. Meanwhile, the current statistical observations show that people who do not have diabetes live decades longer than diabetics. Thus, for an average person who monitors his health, in the near future with high proportion chances of living a hundred years or more.
Millennium life
Aubrey de Gray, a professor from the University of Cambridge, is an indisputable authority in modern gerontology. It would seem that only because of this, he must be a skeptic or, in any case, a cautious pragmatist. If only because for too long the best minds have unsuccessfully searched for the elixir of youth. However, the scientist claims that the term of human life can be increased tenfold. “People who will live to be 150 have already been born,” says Aubrey de Grey. – Moreover, in the next twenty years, there will be a person who will celebrate New Year third millennium. It's all about anti-aging drugs, the first generation of which has already appeared.
Dr. Aubrey de Gray describes aging as a lifelong accumulation various types molecular and cellular damage in all human organs. “The idea is to do preventive geriatrics,” he explains, “in other words, periodically repair molecular and cellular damage before it reaches pathogenicity.” He sees ways to maintain cellular health in stem cell therapy, the use of which will help replace diseased tissues with healthy ones.”
In this case, it is possible to get away from the expensive cultivation of human organs and their transplantation instead of damaged ones, and with poorly predictable consequences. The fact is that transplantation is always fraught with complications and risks for the whole organism, if only because, for example, “an old, albeit not diseased, liver will not always be able to work harmoniously with new kidneys.”
How many people can live? Gerontologists say that people have already been born who will celebrate their 150th anniversaries, and over the next 20 years it will be possible to live 10 centuries.
How long to live?
Americans say about themselves that they are madly in love with sensations. Most likely, this is why the news that the Chinese Li Ching-Yun died at the age of 256 blew up America and became the most widely read.
The New York Times and Time Magazine wrote about it back in 1933. However, doctors are not inclined to believe this, and documents confirming this fact have never been found. But the very idea that someone lived for two and a half centuries still haunts dreamers of a long life.
On the other hand, many gerontologists are convinced that we live much less than nature allots us. The officially documented longevity record belongs to the Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment, who took her life lightly and "without worries." She lived for 122 years. Genetics have not found anything special in her body.
Who wants to live?
Popular science journalist David Ewen gathered an audience of all sorts of older people and asked what life expectancy they dream of - 80, 120 and 150 years, or even infinity. Most of the respondents answered that they are quite satisfied with the age of 80, and they often think of death as an inevitable event.
And this despite the fact that people have been provided with a lot of medicines and medical devices that can radically prolong life. Businessman Jun Yun, who was present at that meeting, voiced the real cost of longevity. We are talking about a hundred years or more. In his opinion, even now it can cost no more than one million dollars.
It is interesting that most gerontologists believe that a sincere love for life is a prerequisite for longevity, and the thought of death, like a smoked cigarette, reduces the data of the year by nature by several minutes.
Medicines for life
Physician Laura Helmut claims that "we have a 50/50 chance that in the next 25 years we will bring mortality under a hundred years under control." She gave a personal example of how current advances in medicine affect life expectancy.
“My great-great-grandmother died at the age of 57, probably from a heart attack,” Laura Helmut shares her observations. My great-grandmother passed away at the age of 67 from a stroke. My grandmother takes medication for high blood pressure and high cholesterol. She will be celebrating her 90th birthday next week. She thus became the first person in my family to live long enough to see great-grandchildren. Prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease is a huge achievement in the field of longevity.”
The next medical victory, which will dramatically increase life expectancy, will be a complete cure for diabetes. This was reported by experts from Genetic Engineering Technology in the journal Science Translational Medicine. They managed to create antibodies that activate brown adipose tissue cells, utilizing fats and normalizing blood glucose levels. Meanwhile, current statistical observations show that people who do not have diabetes live decades longer than diabetics. Thus, the average person who monitors his health will, in the near future, with a high degree of probability, have the opportunity to live a hundred or more years.
Millennium life
Aubrey de Gray, a professor from the University of Cambridge, is an indisputable authority in modern gerontology. It would seem that only because of this, he must be a skeptic or, in any case, a cautious pragmatist. If only because for too long the best minds have unsuccessfully searched for the elixir of youth. However, the scientist claims that the term of human life can be increased tenfold. “People who will live to be 150 have already been born,” says Aubrey de Grey. “Moreover, in the next twenty years, a person will appear who will celebrate the new year of the third millennium.” It's all about anti-aging drugs, the first generation of which has already appeared.
Dr. Aubrey de Gray describes aging as a lifelong accumulation of various types of molecular and cellular damage in all human organs. “The idea is to do preventive geriatrics,” he explains, “in other words, periodically repair molecular and cellular damage before it reaches pathogenicity.” He sees ways to maintain cellular health in stem cell therapy, the use of which will help replace diseased tissues with healthy ones.”
In this case, it is possible to get away from the expensive cultivation of human organs and their transplantation instead of damaged ones, and with poorly predictable consequences. The fact is that transplantation is always fraught with complications and risks for the whole organism, if only because, for example, “an old, albeit not diseased, liver will not always be able to work harmoniously with new kidneys.”
This is one side of the problem of longevity. It is related to the social conditions of people's lives.
There is another, biological side of the problem, which is inseparable from the first.
How long, according to its biological properties, can a person live, being in favorable conditions? social conditions? What is the lifespan of which a person is physiologically capable?
Scientists have tried to find an answer to this.
For example, Buffon, who lived in the 18th century, proposed his own way of solving the problem. He calculated how long pets grow. This is determined by the growth of bones. When the bones stop increasing in length, this means that the growth of the body has ended. It turned out that a dog grows up to two years, a cat - up to one and a half years, a cow - up to four, a horse - up to five, a camel - up to eight years, and so on.
Then he took the lifespan of each animal and divided it by time (growth. The result gave an average figure of six. Then Buffon concluded that the life of any higher mammal animal, including man, is five to six times longer than the period of its growth. Human growth ends at about twenty-five years old, and it remains to multiply this number by six, and the problem, according to Buffon, is solved: it turns out to be about one hundred and fifty years.
The famous Russian biochemist Academician Lazarev, who lived at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, proposed his own method for determining the biological lifespan that can be achieved by a person.
In what way did he consider it possible to establish the duration, the degree of viability of the organism?
Lazarev argued that the vitality of an organism is most accurately expressed in the work of the sense organs, in the sharpness of their susceptibility. He put this idea at the basis of his calculations.
Usually death comes when the sense organs have not yet worn out, when they retain sufficient receptivity and sensitivity.
Knowing to what extent the functions of the sense organs decrease over a certain period, it is possible to establish how much more time would have to pass for them to completely stop.
That's when natural death would come.
Lazarev's calculations showed that the lifetime of the centers of the sense organs, that is, the limit of their existence, lies between 150 and 180 years.
Again came out the same approximate 150 years, as in Buffon.
It must be said here that neither Buffon nor Lazarev found laws for determining the biological duration of life. What they considered to be laws, in fact, were only assumptions, hypotheses.
But they must have found some grain of truth. It is interesting that other scientists who have dealt with the same issue and applied their own methods have come to approximately the same conclusions.
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