The dream of eternal youth has haunted humans since the dawn of time, and the oldest of these attempts dates back to ancient Chinese scientists who used herbs and acupuncture, and relied on meditation and sports activities, and resorted to "alchemy", which is a primitive science that the ancients exploited trying to develop what was known as the "elixir of life" by mixing different materials such as metals, but they did not succeed in fighting the damage of aging.
In ancient Greece around 400 BC, the philosopher Plato classified disease and age-related symptoms as two different phenomena, and suggested that living a healthy life contributes to protecting the body during old age.
On the contrary, his student Aristotle believed that aging is a natural disease that affects man and negatively affects the wisdom of the mind.
Interest in anti-aging and longevity sciences began in the 16th century when the Italian Luigi Cornaro wrote The Art of Living Long, in which he pointed out the importance of maintaining the body's vitality during the aging years by committing to eating healthy food and living an organized life.
In the 19th century, doctors in Paris hospitals conducted several studies that indicated that many physiological changes occur within the human body when it reaches the stage of aging, by following the changes that affect cells with age, which revealed that the loss of vitality of the body alone does not affect public health during advanced age, which means that spending long healthy years requires more than just healthy and sports diets.
Plato suggested that living a healthy life contributes to protecting the body during aging (Shutterstock)
Mortality and its association with diet
At the beginning of the twentieth century, researchers tended to study the mortality rates of single-celled organisms (such as some types of bacteria and fungi), mice and humans, and noticed a similarity between these rates in different organisms, which is an increased likelihood of death with age.
The scientists concluded that aging is a must occurrence, but it can slow its rate when applying certain interventions, one of which is calorie restriction, and several experiments have been conducted to test this hypothesis on mice, the most important of which are Clive Mackay's studies.
During the experiments, Mackay assigned mice fewer calorie meals and supplies them with vitamins and minerals needed for growth, and results published in 1935 indicated that these mice lived 40 percent longer than those that ate freely.
Mackay concluded that calorie reduction delays the progression of age-related diseases, and applied his hypotheses to different species and humans as well.
Several years earlier, Russian microbiologist Ilya Mechnikov studied the mechanism of action of the immune system, and suggested that aging is a process produced by the presence of harmful bacteria in the stomach, and pointed out that eating fermented foods such as yogurt may contribute to prolonging life because it promotes the presence of beneficial bacteria.
Mechnikov was awarded the 1908 Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology for his discovery of phagocytosis, the ability of certain cells of the body to swallow pathogenic foreign bodies.
Telomeres are sequences of DNA at the end of each chromosome to protect its limbs from tangles and ensure its integrity (Shutterstock)
Successive developments in the fight against aging
In the middle of the twentieth century, the American biologist Leonard Hayflick found that the normal cells of the human body have a limited ability to divide, that is, they divide for a certain period and then stop during the aging period, a hypothesis known as the "Hayflick Limit", and cell aging does not lead to their death, but rather causes their survival and release chemicals that increase inflammation.
An important contribution to the fight against the impact of aging is the discovery of telomeres, which are the DNA sequences at the end of each chromosome, and their function is to protect the ends of chromosomes from entanglement, ensuring that their integrity is maintained, and with cell division, telomeres become short until they reach the point that prevents this division and cells die.
Elizabeth Blackburn and her colleagues conducted research between 1982 and 1989 to study the mechanism of action of telomeres and the enzyme telomerase responsible for repairing telomeres defects, which helped discover the link between these substances and cell aging.
She won the Nobel Prize for her discoveries in 2009, paving a new path towards using telomerase to extend cell life.
In the nineties of the last century, researchers discovered Sirtuins, a group of proteins found in various living organisms, the first of which was the discovery of "Sir2" (Sir2) responsible for several important functions in the body, including DNA repair, and maintaining the stability of chromosomes, and scientists believe that maintaining or activating these proteins may contribute to prolonging the lives of humans, and Professor David Sinclair is one of the most famous researchers in this field.
Shinya Yamanaka was awarded the Nobel Prize for developing a method that reprograms mouse skin cells into stem cells (Shutterstock)
Gene and drug editing and cell reprogramming for longer life
Several researchers have also found a range of links between genes and cell aging, including geneticist Cynthia Kenyon, who was able to modify one of the genes of worms from the C. elegans family, and this modification led to the doubling of the lives of these worms and their healthy lives, drawing attention to the possibility of modifying genes to fight aging.
In the early 21st century, researchers developed rapamycin to treat some types of cancers, as well as suppress immunosuppression to reduce the body's rejection of transplanted organs.
Research published in the journal Science suggested that the drug could prolong the lives of some species of mice under certain conditions, prompting researchers to conduct further studies.
In 2012, Japanese scientist Shinya Yamanaka was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology for developing a way to reprogram the skin cells of a mouse species into immature stem cells.
Yamanaka was able to achieve this feat by recognizing certain genes and activating them to reverse cell maturation.
Arab scientists have distinguished contributions to ageing research
Professor Sherif Al-Khamisi, Deputy Director of the Healthy Life Span Institute of the Faculty of Biological Sciences at the University of Sheffield, UK, and former Director of the Center for Genomic Sciences at Zewail City of Science, Technology and Innovation, Egypt, has contributed to a number of studies related to anti-aging and longevity sciences, most notably the study published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, in which he and his research team discovered the mechanism of neuronal death in patients with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).
Al-Khamisi works on developing Syneletics drugs that fight toxic proteins secreted by elderly cells (University of Bradford)
Al-Khamisi pointed out during his interview with Al Jazeera Net to the results of that study, saying, "Neurons in patients with "ALS" secrete toxic proteins, and the cells of the body devour those proteins naturally during a process called "autophagy" (Autophagy).
What we found is that the body's cells may also devour molecules responsible for repairing damaged human DNA, further damaging DNA and leading to the death of neurons.
"We are currently seeking to discover the common causes of diseases associated with aging, trying to delay their onset and exacerbation, and we are working alongside several laboratories to develop drugs called "Senolytics" aimed at combating toxic proteins secreted by "aged cells", because these proteins are contagious, meaning that they promote the secretion of neighboring cells more toxic proteins.
The bottom line is that so far it is not possible to say with certainty that there is a cure or a way to help us live long lives, and the advancement of health technology has contributed to the prolongation of human lives, but it has also caused them to develop several diseases that the ancients may not have experienced, so the search for how to reduce these diseases remains of interest to various researchers.