活到120岁正在成为一个可以想象的前景.pdf

Living to 120 is becoming animaginable of life 领导|生命灵丹妙药Efforts to slow ageing are takingwing 减缓衰老的努力正在取得进展Sep 28th 2023 2023 年 9 月 28 日Want to live longer?For centuries the attempt tostop ageing was the preserve of charlatanstouting the benefits of mercury and arsenic,orassortments of herbs and pills,often todisastrous effect.Yet after years of false starts,the idea of a genuine elixir of longevity is takingwing.Behind it is a coterie of fascinated andambitious scientists and enthusiastic and self-interested billionaires.Increasingly,they arebeing joined by ordinary folk who have come tothink that the right behaviour and drugs couldadd years,maybe decades,to their lives.入群V:qxcaijing2023想要活得更久吗？几个世纪以来，阻止衰老的尝试一直是江湖骗子的专利，他们宣扬汞和砷或各种草药和药丸的好处，但往往会带来灾难性的后果。然而，在经历了多年的错误开始之后，真正的长寿灵丹妙药的想法正在蓬勃发展。它的背后是一群着迷且雄心勃勃的科学家和热情而自私的亿万富翁。越来越多的普通民众也加入了他们的行列，他们开始认为正确的行为和药物可以使他们的寿命延长数年，甚至数十年。Living to 100 today is not unheard of,but isstill rare.In America and Britain centenariansmake up around 0.03%of the population.Should the latest efforts to prolong life reachtheir potential,living to see your 100thbirthday could become the norm;making it to120 could become a perfectly reasonableaspiration.今天活到 100 岁并非闻所未闻，但仍然很少见。在美国和英国，百岁老人约占总人口的0.03%。如果延长寿命的最新努力能够发挥其潜力，活到百岁生日可能会成为常态；达到 120可能成为一个完全合理的愿望。More exciting still,those extra years would behealthy.What progress has been made inexpanding lifespans has so far come bycountering the causes of death,especially入群V:qxcaijing2023infectious disease.The process of ageing itself,with its attendant ills such as dementia,has notyet been slowed.This time,that is theintention.更令人兴奋的是，这些额外的岁月将是健康的。迄今为止，在延长寿命方面取得的进展是通过消除死因，特别是传染病来实现的。衰老过程本身以及随之而来的痴呆症等疾病尚未减缓。这一次，正是这个意图。The idea,as we set out in our TechnologyQuarterly,is to manipulate biological processesassociated with ageing that,when dampened inlaboratory animals,seem to extend their lives.Some of these are familiar,such as severelyrestricting the number of calories an animalconsumes as part of an otherwise balanced diet.Living such a calorie-restricted life is too muchto ask of most people;but drugs that affect therelevant biological pathways appear to bringsimilar results.One is metformin,which hasbeen approved for use against type-2 diabetes;another is rapamycin,an immunosuppressantused in organ transplants.Early adopters arestarting to take these drugs“off label”,off theirown bat or by signing what amount to servicingcontracts with a new class of longevity firms.正如我们在技术季刊中提出的，这个想法是入群V:qxcaijing2023操纵与衰老相关的生物过程，当实验动物的衰老过程受到抑制时，似乎可以延长它们的寿命。其中一些是熟悉的，例如严格限制动物消耗的卡路里数量，作为均衡饮食的一部分。对于大多数人来说，过上如此限制卡路里摄入的生活是一个过高的要求。但影响相关生物途径的药物似乎会带来类似的结果。其中之一是二甲双胍，已被批准用于治疗 2 型糖尿病；另一种是雷帕霉素，一种用于器官移植的免疫抑制剂。早期采用者开始自行“脱离标签”服用这些药物，或者与新型长寿公司签署相当于服务合同的药物。Another path is to develop drugs that kill“senescent”cells for which the body has nofurther use.The natural means for disposing ofthese cells,like a number of other repairmechanisms,themselves weaken with age.Giving them a helping hand is not just a matterof tidying upSenescent cells cause all sorts ofmalfunctions in their healthy neighbours.“Senolytic”drugs which target them poseobvious risks:it is hard to kill off one type ofcell without inconveniencing others.But thepromise is clear.另一种途径是开发药物来杀死人体不再需要的“衰老”细胞。与许多其他修复机制一样，处理这些细胞的自然方法本身也会随着年龄的增长而减弱。向他们伸出援助之手不仅仅是收拾东西的问入群V:qxcaijing2023题。衰老细胞会导致其健康邻居出现各种功能障碍。针对它们的“Senolytic”药物带来了明显的风险：很难在不给其他细胞带来不便的情况下杀死一种类型的细胞。但承诺是明确的。For true believers that is just the beginning.Groups of academic and commercialresearchers are studying how to rejuvenatecells and tissues by changing the“epigenetic”markers on chromosomes,which tell cellswhich genes they should activate.Thesemarkers accumulate with age;strip them backand you might produce the cells of a 20-year-old body inside one that is in fact 65.Mimicking calorie restriction and clearing outsenescent cells would delay ageing.Boostersclaim that epigenetic rejuvenation could halt orreverse it.对于真正的信徒来说，这仅仅是开始。学术和商业研究人员正在研究如何通过改变染色体上的“表观遗传”标记来使细胞和组织恢复活力，这些标记告诉细胞应该激活哪些基因。这些标记随着年龄的增长而积累；如果把它们剥离开来，你可能会在一个实际上有 65 岁的身体内产生 20 岁的细胞。模仿卡路里限制并清除衰老细胞可以延缓衰老。支持者声称表观遗传复兴可以阻止或逆转这种情况。入群V:qxcaijing2023One cause for concern is peoples brains.Slowing bodily ageing will not change the factthat the brain has a finite capacity,and ispresumably adapted by natural selection toconventional lifespans.This is quite separatefrom worries about dementia,which is causedby specific diseases.Society will thus have tofind ways to adapt to the normal ageing inbrains:centenarians may,for instance,findthemselves increasingly occupied with askingtheir AI diary assistants questions for whichonce they would have remembered the answer.令人担忧的原因之一是人们的大脑。减缓身体衰老不会改变大脑容量有限的事实，并且可能通过自然选择适应传统的寿命。这与对由特定疾病引起的痴呆症的担忧完全不同。因此，社会必须找到适应大脑正常衰老的方法：例如，百岁老人可能会发现自己越来越忙于向他们的人工智能日记助手提出问题，而这些问题曾经他们会记住答案。Longevity:can ageing be rLongevity:can ageing be r 入群V:qxcaijing2023An even greater concern is that none of theseideas has yet been tested formally on people.That is partly because drug-approval agenciesdo not yet recognise old age as a treatablecondition,making trials hard to register.Bytheir very nature,such trials must followthousands of people over many years,adding totheir cost and complexity.The lack of testing isalso partly because many of the initialproposals use out-of-patent molecules that areof little interest to drug companies.Nevertheless some trials are now in the works.The Targeting Ageing with Metformin trial(TAME)will follow 3,000 Americans in their60s and 70s to see whether the drug does infact aid survival overall.Such studies willnecessarily take time.But more of them areneeded,and governments should be helpingbring them about.更令人担忧的是，这些想法还没有在人体上进行过正式测试。部分原因是药物审批机构尚未承认老年是一种可治疗的疾病，导致试验难以注册。就其本质而言，此类试验必须对数千人进行多年的跟踪，从而增加了其成本和复杂性。缺乏测试的部分原因是许多最初的提案使用了制药公司不感兴趣的专利过期分子。尽管如此，一些试验目前正在进行中。二甲双胍靶向衰老试验(tame)将跟踪 3,000 名 60 多岁和 70 多岁的美国人，入群V:qxcaijing2023看看该药物是否确实有助于整体生存。这样的研究必然需要时间。但还需要更多这样的目标，政府应该帮助实现这些目标。Any development that causes people to livehealthily for longer,and to take fulleradvantage of what the world has to offer,iscause for cheer.Some people,observingbillionaires interest in longevity-promotingstartups,worry that the benefits will becaptured mainly by the rich,leading to a classof long-lived bermenschen lording it overshort-lived ordinary folk.But technologies havea record of spreading,and cheapening as theydo so.It is hard to imagine a privilege morelikely to spark rebellion than a ruling class thathoards age-treatments to escape the greatleveller.任何能让人们健康地活得更久、更充分地利用世界所提供的东西的发展都是值得欢呼的。一些人注意到亿万富翁对促进长寿的初创公司的兴趣，担心这些好处将主要被富人攫取，导致长寿的超人阶级凌驾于短命的普通民众之上。但技术有传播的记录，并且随着传播的进行而变得便宜。很难想象还有什么特权比统治阶级为了逃避伟大的平等者而囤积老年疗法更容易引发叛乱。入群V:qxcaijing2023The fact of many people living much longerwould have wide ramifications.Most obviously,working lives will be extended,as they havealready as life expectancies have lengthened,and possibly even more so for women,who willlose less of their careers to having children,perhaps narrowing inequality in the workplace.Over time there could be deeper shifts.Peoplewho live longer may care more about threatsthat are further away,such as the state of theworld in 2100.Longevity permits the patientaccumulation of capital,a factor in theemergence of a middle class.And times whenpolitical power is exercised mainly by youngmen,such as the Middle Ages in Europe,tendto be more violent than when older,coolerheads prevail.Families will span even moregenerations and,presumably,larger networksof exes,half-siblings and quarter-cousins.Willthat atomise them,or bring them together?Will a surfeit of centenarians marginalise theyoung,create a cult of youthor both?许多人寿命更长的事实将产生广泛的影响。最明显的是，随着预期寿命的延长，工作寿命将会延长，对于女性来说可能更是如此，她们因生育孩子而失去的职业生涯将会减少，或许会缩小工作场所的不平等。随着时间的推移，可能会发生更深层次的变化。寿命较长的人可能更关心更遥远入群V:qxcaijing2023的威胁，例如 2100 年的世界状况。长寿允许资本的耐心积累，这是中产阶级出现的一个因素。当政治权力主要由年轻人行使的时代，例如欧洲的中世纪，往往比年长、冷静的头脑盛行时更加暴力。家庭将跨越更多代人，并且可能会出现更大的由前任、同父异母的兄弟姐妹和四分之一表兄弟姐妹组成的网络。这会让它们原子化，还是将它们聚集在一起？过多的百岁老人是否会导致年轻人边缘化、形成对年轻人的崇拜或者两者兼而有之？For ever and a day 永远和一天People will seize on the elixir of life if itbecomes available.Natural selection has nointerest in indefinite longevity per se:the traitsthat spread best are those that make organismsfit in their prime;those that help them live onwhen reproduction is a distant memory mustwork through children and grandchildren.Yetthe visceral drive to cling to life is the mostbasic trait of all.Indeed,it is prevailing todayto tantalising effect.如果有长生不老药，人们就会抓住它。自然选择对无限期的长寿本身并不感兴趣：传播得最好的性状是那些使生物体处于鼎盛时期的性状；当繁入群V:qxcaijing2023衍已成为遥远的记忆时，那些帮助他们继续生活的人必须通过子孙来努力。然而，对生活的本能驱动力是最基本的特征。事实上，它在今天很盛行，并且产生了诱人的效果。For subscribers only:to see how we designeach weeks cover,sign up to our weekly CoverStory newsletter.仅限订阅者：要了解我们如何设计每周的封面，请订阅我们的每周封面故事时事通讯。This article appeared in the Leaders section ofthe print edition under the headline Living to120本文出现在印刷版的领导者部分，标题为“活到120 岁”Leaders 领导者 September 30th2023 2023 年 9 月 30 日Living to 120 is becoming an imaginableprospect 活到120岁正在成为一个可以想象的前景The war in Ukraine is a powerful reasonto enlargeand improvethe EU 乌克兰战争是扩大和改善欧盟的有力理由入群V:qxcaijing2023Joe Biden may come to regret his claim tobe pro-union乔拜登可能会后悔自己声称支持工会A humanitarian disaster is under way inNagorno-Karabakh纳戈尔诺-卡拉巴赫正在发生人道主义灾难Forget the shutdown.Americas real fiscalworry is rising bond yields忘记关机。美国真正的财政担忧是债券收益率上升The lessons from Microsofts startlingcomeback微软令人震惊的卷土重来的教训入群V:qxcaijing2023入群V:qxcaijing2023