• Question: Will anyone ever find a way of living forever and when?

    Asked by emmabriggs to Alex, Amy, Andy, Georgia, Ollie on 18 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Georgia Campbell

      Georgia Campbell answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      I don’t think there’s any research being done into this, so its not likley to happen any time soon! (Though I suppose nothing is impossible!) Right now, it’s more important for us to find ways to age healthily – diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimers crop up from middle-age onwards for us now, which would be very early in life if we learnt how to live a lot longer! I think that having a high quality of life is much better than living for a long time with poor health, and this is the way that most research is really directed.

      Maybe one day though … 🙂

    • Photo: Andy MacLeod

      Andy MacLeod answered on 18 Jun 2011:

      Maybe. But not for a while.

      Hello Emma. It’s not possible at the moment, but it’s always very difficult to predict where the course of scientific progress will take us. We’d need to understand exactly what happens as the body ages if we want to slow down or stop that process. We have some idea how ageing works, we haven’t quite been able to stop the process. Even if we did, there would still be risks involved, as well as ethical questions posed.

      I don’t think I’d like to live forever. Knowing that my time on earth is limited makes me appreciate it all the more. What about you?

Comments