Professor details the dangers of living forever as huge anti-ageing breakthroughs are made

Dr Cave attended the Should We Want To Live Forever at Sky News’ Big Ideas Live event, where he explained the potential downfalls of human immortality. He also questioned whether this long-saught-after dream could ever truly become a reality. 

He said: “People have been dreaming about extending life beyond the 70 or 80 years that you might think of as natural for as long as recorded history. The very first stories we have, like the epic of Gilgamesh, are about the pursuit of greater longevity, rejuvenation, the fountain of youth, immortality and so on. You find it in ancient Egypt, ancient China, and throughout the history of science. 

“Yes, you can meet scientists now who say that we’re on the verge of this breakthrough that is going to solve ageing, but scientists were saying the exact same thing 100 years ago. People believed them and some people made a lot of money, some people got sick, some people got better because of placebo effects. But really from the very dawn of science, it has been used to pursue this dream. 

“Are we any closer today? Yes, I am sure we are…but there are two things to separate. In the last 150 years or so, life expectancy has doubled, but it has doubled to around 70 or 80 years. Through public hygiene and vaccinations, what we have managed to do is bring infant mortality down. If you imagine half the world living until the age of five, and the other half living to 75, the average is around 35 or 40 years. So life expectancy has doubled, but not by getting people to live much longer than humans have ever lived. The basic structure of life hasn’t changed.”

Article source: https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1701143/anti-ageing-technology-breakthrough-healthcare-big-ideas-live