Up Front 04/07

Watching our children grow up may well be, for many, the most important reason for living a long time. But as we witness and read about more and more horror around the world, it is sometimes hard to understand our obsession with extending human life. According to a recent article in Chemistry & Industry magazine, a team of scientists have shown for the first time that food enriched with natural isotopes could extend human life substantially. In initial experiments with worms, their life spans were extended by 10%, which, with humans expected to routinely coast close to one hundred years of age, could add a further 10 years to human life. Food enhanced with isotopes is thought to produce bodily constituents and DNA more resistant to detrimental processes. The isotopes could be used in animal feed so that humans could get the ‘age-defying’ isotopes indirectly in steaks or chicken fillets, for example, rather than eating chemically enhanced products themselves. Isotopes could, apparently, also be used in pet food or as a means to protect workers or soldiers from radiation. As so often happens when research such as this is announced the resultant outcry can throw up unlikely alliances. In this case an Anti-age Research Group plans to gather on the first of April with the Global Undertaking Society to stage a protest rally at Hyde Park. Sounds like baby boomer heaven.