Professor Partridge opened her talk under a timeline frieze of photos of Glasgow’s beloved comedian Billy Connolly, showing him from fresh-faced schoolboy through to his more wizened, hirsute older self, aged 83.
Connolly was cited as an example of healthy ageing, despite having endured prostate cancer and his suffering now from Parkinson’s Disease (responding to the first diagnosis, he quipped, “I wish Parkinson had just kept it to himself”). Maybe a sense of humour helps combat ageing – the world’s oldest living person, Ethel Caterham, 116 years plus, is quoted as saying, “I just listen. Then I do what I want.” She smoked until she was 107, and tenement-born Connolly has said, “I had an upbringing that money couldn’t buy: abject poverty.”
So, the human mind and body can survive a relatively long time, even when unhealthy habits and deprivation are prevalent. However, “Longer lives among more people brings greater incidence of age-related disease; the older you get the greater the morbidity.” Ah, every silver lining comes with a dark cloud. How very Scottish.
Deprivation is a major factor in this story: “Social disadvantage accelerates ageing.” Scotsmen living in the least deprived areas of our country generally outlive their counterparts in the most deprived areas by five to six years. Overall, the average Scotsman has a life expectancy of 77; for women it’s 82. But life expectancy is declining and for many, the later years are unhealthy years, which has consequences for everyone – families, friends, the NHS, society at large. The aim, then, has to be, “to decrease the unhealthy period in later life and maintain intrinsic capacity as long as possible.”
Research is ongoing, knowledge is accruing, and best of all, “Ageing is not inevitable!” We saw examples from the natural world of long, active life. Consider the Greenland Shark, age 392. Or better still the Ocean Quahog, age 507. Okay, the quahog is a species of edible clam, and who wants to be a clam, never mind an edible one, but maybe it’s a happy-go-lucky life in the North Atlantic. Anyway, long healthy life is possible.
Useful information is being gathered from unexpected places. Studies using nematode worms show that Alzheimer’s Disease can be reversed by combining mutant forms. Which is where we ventured deeper into the science – “Gene expression analysing of the mTOR pathway …”; the studying of the nine hallmarks of ageing, such as stem cell exhaustion, instability, etc; “degrading enzymes”; “molecular indicators” are being sought. Existing drugs are being repurposed to fight the ageing process. The medical records of the NHS provide an immensely important resource. Future strategy? Rather than treating the various effects of ageing as they appear, we should be intervening early in the hallmarks as we know them.
It looks like we could perhaps science our way to living forever. If so, will humans become something other? Will our descendants be clones, the pick-and-mix offspring of scientists, AI and spare-component surgeons? Will we be part human, part quahog, part microchip?
Professor Partridge kept her thought-provoking talk accessible, with varied imagery and clear delivery throughout. She was also funny: “Research is affected by human organisms: billionaires.”
Audience questions touched on the impact of environmental pollution, the menopause, obesity and – cue more laughter – “When will the successful drugs be available, please?”
Linda Partridge is a geneticist, the Weldon Professor of Biometry at University College London and Founding Director Emeritus of the Max Planck Institute for the Biology of Ageing in Cologne. Chair Pat Monaghan thanked Linda and presented her with the ageless, timeless Society paperweight. The talk is available online.