Among researchers in the biology of aging, Leonard Hayflick has a big reputation. So well known is he in such circles that his name has been given to the limits by which human cells can multiply. Only around 50 times, he discovered decades ago, can such multiplication occur, the so-called “Hayflick limit.” (Some other research, newly reported, suggests that this limit can be overcome.)
So it was that I felt privileged to take part in a press conference given by this famous scientist at a gerontological meeting in Philadelphia a few weeks ago. The experience turned out to be fascinating and valuable but, at the same time, sobering.
Leonard Hayflick believes that “our society is more gullible than other societies.” That makes us vulnerable to hucksters who sell the idea that the human life span can be extended by a whole lot, if not indefinitely. These longevity merchants want us to believe that science can make us live, if not forever, at least much longer than we do now.
Hayflick, however, believes that scientists know too little about the aging process itself. Most federal money for research, he complains, goes into the diseases of aging such as Alzheimer’s. Not that he is unsympathetic to finding a cure for that plague, but any such breakthrough will teach scientists nothing about aging itself.
As to what happens to human cells with time, “we’re on a path of molecular disorder from age thirty on,” says Hayflick. All of the diseases of old age come from increased vulnerability. “Why are old cells more vulnerable to dis-ease than young cells?,” he asks, calling it the basic question.
It’s the kind of question avoided by most people who write about aging. Here’s Hayflick’s opinion about such writing. In reviewing several books in-tended for a lay readership, he writes:
“The public is not interested in knowing the truth about aging if an author is unwilling to promote a method for reversing it. Telling the truth does not sell books about aging. Hyping an unproven lifestyle does. These books sell because the general public wants to read about good news, not why the aging process cannot be reversed in humans.”
This hard-headed scientist keeps returning to the fundamental facts of biology. Of the disorder which he finds in aging cells, he says, “There may be nothing we can do about it.” He judges efforts to extend human life as often misguided if not downright dangerous.
This latter viewpoint is one that I share. Not only do I instinctively feel skeptical about promises of earthly immortality but I regard the promise givers as potential menaces. Think of what would happen if suddenly everyone were assured of living to age 200!
Such a breakthrough would create chaos for the public and widespread unhappiness for individuals. We would be assured long life without any assurance that we would enjoy being alive. Presumably the ills that flesh is heir to would multiply greatly.
We would become like Tithonus, the figure in Greek mythology who was granted the gift of immortality by Zeus without protection against the effects of aging. He kept shriveling up but until another god took pity on him and changed him into a grasshopper.
Hayflick remarks that this is the first time in history that tampering with the aging process is regarded as desirable. But, given the prospect of extended life, you have to ask at what age you would want your life to be arrested.
Like many others, Hayflick regards the “compression of morbidity” as the best we can hope for. Ideally, we would live into our 90s and then die suddenly without having been sick for a long time previously. Though that actually happens now to a few people, most of us will fall far short of this ideal.
As has become clear, I can find much common ground with Hayflick. However, I find his scientific approach to aging inadequate as an overall philosophy. His scientific knowledge, marvelous as it is, can take him only so far.
I also disagree with Hayflick’s generalizations about the reading public. Readers of this column with whom I have been in touch impress me as much more level-headed than he allows. Most people do not have their hearts set on reversing the aging process. Instead they want to find some meaning in their experience of later life as it actually is.
A broader view of human life than the scientific one suggests that there really is a lot of good news about aging. That’s the kind of good news I try to write about in this column. Yes, the bounds of the human life limit us in many ways. But the elders I meet are still doing marvelous things with their lives—learning, loving, creating, growing in spirit and truth, to mention only a few.
Richard Griffin