How Can the Quest for Longer Life SUCCEED?

Hormone Therapy and Genetics -Reason for Hope?

Hormone therapy is one field that inspires hope. Experiments with the hormone know as DHEA seem to slow down the aging process in laboratory animals.

Concerning the plant hormone kinetin, the Swedish daily Afonbladet quoted Dr. Suresh Rattan, a professor at Aarhus University, Denmark, as saying: "Tests in our laboratory show that human skin cells cultivated in kinetin do not change in the normal age-related way. They stay young throughout their lives." Insects treated with the harmone are said to live from 30 to 45 percent longer than normal.

Melatonin treatments are said to have the extended life span of a mice by as much as 25 percent. Moreover, the mice appeared younger, healthier and more vigorous.

Advocates of human growth hormone (hgH) claim that it contributes to glowing skin, increased muscle mass, elevated sex drive, a lighter mood, sharper mental acuity, and the metabolism of a teenager (This again is the work of Satan).

Many look also to genetics. Scientists have reckoned that by manipulating genes, they can control the life span of a nematode, or roundworm. In fact, they have succeeded in keeping some of them alive for six times their normal life span. This has raised hopes of finding and manipulating similar genes in humans. Time magazine quoted Dr. Siegfried Hekimi of McGill University, Montreal, as saying: "If we find all of the human clock genes, we can perhaps slow them down just a little (again with the help of Satan), so we can extend life."

Biologists have long known that an end section of chromosomes, the so-called telomere,is shortened each time the cell produces. When the telomere loses about 20 percent of its length, the cell's ability to reproduce is shut off and it dies. A particular enzyme called telomerase can restore the telomere to full length , thus allowing the cell to keep dividing. In most cells this enzyme is repressed and inactive, but active telomerase has been successfully inserted into certain cells, making them grow and divide far beyond the normal number of times.

According to researchers, this opens up sensational possibilities in fighting age-related diseases. What about replacing the body's stem cells (cells that provide for the regeneration of body tissue) with stem cells (from unborn fetuses) that have been "immortalized" with active telomerase? Dr. William A. Haseltine says: "This is a clearly articulated vision of human immorality ( Only God can give us immorality) that will be introduced slowly over the next 50 years." (There will be something wrong with this process in the end,because only God has this kind of power, not man, we can't even rule ourselves, much less give humans immortality) -The New York Times.

Next time: Do Nanotechnology and Cryonics Hold the Answer?

Watchtower, 1999