I've never understood people who say things like, "Well, I want to live to be 100 in perfect health, and then die peacefully in my sleep". The contradiction in that sort of statement should be obvious. Healthy people don't die in their sleep, "peacefully" or otherwise. You don't hear about too many 25-year-olds dying suddenly of heart attacks or strokes during their nightly slumber. There are a few -- some people end up expiring suddenly in their twenties or thirties due to undiagnosed cardiovascular dysfunction and other similar conditions, but the majority of people found dead in their beds are elderly.
When people in their twenties die, it's usually considered tragic. When babies are found dead in their cribs, it's referred to by a name ("Sudden Infant Death Syndrome"). But when elderly people die, in bed or otherwise, there tends to be a curious tone of, "Well, at least they went peacefully".
On one hand, I see this as somewhat tasteless; after all, why should Sudden Grandma Death Syndrome be any less undesirable than Sudden Infant Death syndrome? But on the other hand, I do understand where this reaction is coming from -- a sudden death is considered more desirable than a long drawn-out period of pain and suffering. Healthy life extension research aims to combat the pain and suffering -- not just the death part of the equation.
Quality and length of life are inseparable in my estimation: a quality life will last a long time by definition (barring accidents) since it won't include terrible illness and deterioration, and people living these quality lives won't have any reason to wish for the hastening of death.
Nevertheless, there's an important bit of cultural engineering to be done here that I think could go a long way toward improving support for longevity research. This cultural engineering involves recognizing the value of our elderly citizens.
First of all, elderly people are still persons -- self-aware beings with the ability to learn, love, and take joy in living. They're not any more "expendable" than any other sentient person, and my own personal philosophy (which is not religious, but ethical) does not allow for the consideration of any sentient individual as expendable. No matter how old they are.
Second of all, people who have lived a very long time tend to have accumulated considerable knowledge and have had many years to reflect on and combine this knowledge. That is, they possess wisdom, and wisdom is something that you can't inject, simulate, or substitute for. Wisdom develops over time as a result of experience and learning.
I'm sure many readers can think of an elderly person they've known over the course of their lives -- a grandparent, a neighbor, a great-uncle -- who brought the sort of fascinating perspective to their existence that only comes from years of reflection and observation. It is my contention that many humans never even get the opportunity to enjoy the fruits of their own accumulated wisdom, because as soon as it starts becoming significant, their bodies fail them and they pass into oblivion.
Third of all, the presence of retired persons in volunteer work is a testament to the fact that older people still want to participate and make a positive difference in the world. My boyfriend's parents have a neighbor who is in her nineties who still volunteers at a local hospital, drives her great-grandsons around (and often spends the day running after them), and is certainly not interested in slowing down.
Endeavors like the Supercentenarian Research Foundation point in a very positive direction as far as both the cultural engineering and the scientific aspects of longevity research go. From their website:
The mission of The Supercentenarian Research Foundation (SRF) is to promote scientific research into the causes of aging initially by funding investigations into its effects in supercentenarians (people who have attained the age of 110 years or greater). The knowledge gained from this research can then provide the opportunity to develop methodologies to improve the health and longevity of supercentenarians, their children, centenarians (those aged 100-109 years), and those of us who would otherwise never achieve such an exceptional life span.
This is an excellent mission, not only because it seeks to find means to direct action to improve the health of older persons, but because it recognizes the value of all lives, regardless of how long the person has already lived. Obviously, people are living longer than ever before. There are an estimated 300 people worldwide aged 110 years or older -- and these people deserve the same right to good medical care as anyone else. People of different ages have unique health needs, and recognizing these unique needs can improve health care across the board for all individuals.
Two centuries ago, pediatrics wasn't even a field of medicine; children were simply treated as "smaller versions of adults", and the unique developmental characteristics of children were not taken into account to the degree necessary. However, it became clear over time that people in different stages of life required different care in order to maintain health optimally. It's time to fully recognize the personhood and health needs of people of all ages, and researching the biology of supercentenarians seems like an excellent start toward such ends.
8 comments:
Both my grandmother and father died after lapsing into unconscious states, and after having seen someone die in a bloody traffic accident, the former is much preferable.
What worries me most about my own aging process is the mental deterioration that I see occurring, starting around age 30 or so. The deterioration that all my elderly relatives experienced took away a lot of what made them who they were. By age 70 or so they both had lost a lot of their personalities.
I'm eating quantities of blueberries, strawberries, spinach, and neuroprotective vitamins on a regular basis, and even with them I am alarmed at the decline in my own mental faculties. I could withstand a painful old age, but losing my memories and personality would be far worse to me.
nerdinium: Are you certain that the supposed decline you're perceiving is purely age-related? It could very well simply be the result of stress and overload. If you're not (and have not been) in an ideal environment, you really don't know what your brain COULD be doing in such an environment. Stress can have very real (yet temporary) effect on cognition.
I remember being about 19 years old and (because I was very overscheduled, stressed, and sleep-deprived) thinking for a while that I had some kind of brain tumor because I started getting lost more easily, losing my ability to solve math problems, etc. I was pretty scared about this for a while but once I dealt better with the stress in my life, my brain came back online.
I agree, though, that losing memories and personality would be a horrible thing -- the brain is the most important part of any person. You can replace anything else in the body BUT the brain and retain your memories and sense of identity, however, protecting the brain should definitely be a research imperative.
And I know they don't necessarily work for everyone, but have you tried any nootropics? (e.g., piracetam?) Might be worth looking into even if the results are somewhat inconclusive so far. At any rate, though, I'm sure that worrying constantly about cognitive decline probably uses up bandwidth that would otherwise be devoted to other things. Stress management is crucial over a long life.
You are right in that some is due to stress and overload, and some is also due to lack of a stimulating environment in the months of previous unemployment.
I decided to get the best health plan available to me with my new employer and try therapy again, as well as other strategies. My diet, although much better than it was, is more CRAN than CRON, and has a lot of room for improvement.
A bit of it is probably disthymia, and melancholy over not being able to achieve what I wanted to in life.
I haven't tried nootropics as such, although I have tried over a dozen different prescription antidepressants, which would likely have a much more powerful effect on brain functioning. I have to be more careful experimenting in the future, as zoloft caused nerve damage for me. It is likely I have a nerve disorder called charcot-marie-tooth syndrome, which supposedly affects only peripheral nerves, but I have to do more research on it to be sure.
Nerdinium:
There are other illnesses, most of which are still unrecognized or poorly understood by mainstream medical practitioners, that can affect your brain.
Many "autoimmune" disorders, which are now known to be caused by L-form stealth bacteria, can directly infect brain and central nervous system cells and have profound effects on cognition, memory, mood and personality as well as distorting peripheral and autonomic nerve function. Sarcoidosis, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, lupus, and chronic lyme are a few of the diseases that fall into this class; I don't know if charcot-marie-tooth syndrome does.
The manifestations of these illnesses can be subtle, and you may not know that you have one of them. They don't necessarily produce outward physical symptoms (or the symptoms are explained as manifestations of depression). Many sufferers just have a vague feeling that something is wrong, they don't feel right, but they can't point to any concrete problem.
Many doctors don't believe that they are real or serious, and they are often misdiagnosed, usually as mental illnesses. Sufferers are prescribed antidepressants, sent to psychotherapy and told to exercise more.
Because they are caused by long-term slow-acting pathogens, these illnesses can run in families and be spread through long-term intimate contact (living with someone, as opposed to having sex with them once or twice). This might explain the similarities between what you've noticed with yourself and your grandparents.
The good news is that there is an effective cure for these diseases. The pathogenesis and treatment protocol (called the Marshall Pathogenesis and Protocol) are slowly finding acceptance with the medical community and the medical governing bodies in the United States. The treatment protocol is extremely challenging, but so worth it. If you want to research this and see if it applies to you, the top level website for the scientific papers, lay explanations and patient community is http://www.marshallprotocol.com. Good luck.
shegeek: That site is sending up a lot of warning flags for me - they say that the protocol can 'repair the damage' from autism, and that they don't want to do a double blind test because it would be 'unethical' to withhold the treatment from the control group.
http://www.marshallprotocol.com/forum32/1263.html
They use double blind studies with cancer, and if their claims can't be verified by other researchers, they are depriving hundreds of thousands of people of treatment rather than the few hundred in a control group.
annec:
I've noticed declines in short term memory and overall cognition for 17 years now since I passed 30 years old. With all the varied life circumstances I've experienced in those two decades, my brain has not recovered at any time to the abilities it had prior to turning 30. I have gained knowledge and wisdom since then, but the raw neural processing power and memory retention has declined significantly.
nerdinium: That Marshall site set off my baloney detector as well...sorry shegeek, I know you meant well, but that site sounds a lot like something that would be on a late-night infomercial alongside ads for Super Colon Cleanze and ionized glow sticks that can remove all the "toxic mold and yeast" from your home insulation.
(And no, my saying this shouldn't be taken as a personal attack -- I'm just speaking critically about the protocol, not about you (shegeek) -- you've made enough intelligent comments on here such that I respect you, but I simply do not take this Marshall thing seriously based on the warning flags it sends up.)
And as for cognitive abilities: I'd say don't make any assumptions about your brain's abilities until you're in a better place, stress-wise. I mean, if people can wake up after 17 years of being in a coma, it seems pretty clear that the brain remains quite plastic throughout life -- you never know what it's going to be capable of.
So while you may need to acknowledge not being able to do X, Y, and Z as well as before (that's just being realistic), you really shouldn't take that to mean you're destined to some kind of constant decline. That's a very dangerous self-fulfilling prophecy.
Older people who anticipate memory decline, etc., experience it to a greater degree than people who don't. Keep challenging yourself intellectually and figuring out your work issues and keeping to a healthy diet, and who knows what could happen?
I was making a vitamin order today for ascorbyl palmitate for the CMT, and noticed that they had huperzine and vinpoetine rather inexpensively, so I ordered a bottle of each. Unfortunately, they don't stock piracetam - I will look for it in the local stores but I have a feeling it is more of a specialty item. I did try a small package of 'focus factor', and had no discernable results at all. I'd like to try hydergine, but am not quite ready to try importing controlled substances yet.
Interestingly, myelin (broken down by the CMT) works by decreasing the capacitance of the nerve fibers (by about 50x), and increasing conduction velocity (2 or 3x). I should try increasing my nerve inductance to null out the capacitance ;)
If you folks don't feel comfortable with the Marshall thing, that's ok. Some people (including me) have accepted it on the basis of the molecular studies published in peer reviewed medical journals. Just to let you know, tho, I don't agree with them on the autism thing.
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