If you were able to fix or prevent the kind of mollecular damage that Grey mostly talks about when he talks about aging, it would probably reduce your odds of getting a heart attack in any given year, but I’m not convinced that it would eliminate it. After all, some people do get heart attacks when they’re 30, it’s just more rare.
Which means that for extreme longevity you would probably have to still find better ways to deal with, cure, or prevent heart attacks, even if we’ve already “cured aging” by the narrow definition of aging you seem to be using.
Also, in a related note, if we’re talking about “longevity escape velocity” (the point where science and technology adds 1 year of lifespan for each year that passes, making it possible for you to live indefinitely), anything that treats any of the diseases of aging would help with that. Right now, heart attack and cancer are the two big killers in the first world; cure either of those, and you’ve extended lifespan by several years already.
for extreme longevity you would probably have to still find better ways to deal with, cure, or prevent heart attacks, even if we’ve already “cured aging”
Yes, of course. “Curing aging” by itself does little to help with a variety of fatal diseases. People who don’t age will still die from infections, strokes, etc. etc.
For infections, of course. For things like strokes and heart attacks, it partly depends on what you mean by “aging”. Even if your cells aren’t aging, if your organs accumulate larger-scale damage over time and eventually fail, would that be considered aging? It’s a question of definitions, more then anything else, but I would think it would be.
If you were able to fix or prevent the kind of mollecular damage that Grey mostly talks about when he talks about aging, it would probably reduce your odds of getting a heart attack in any given year, but I’m not convinced that it would eliminate it. After all, some people do get heart attacks when they’re 30, it’s just more rare.
Which means that for extreme longevity you would probably have to still find better ways to deal with, cure, or prevent heart attacks, even if we’ve already “cured aging” by the narrow definition of aging you seem to be using.
Also, in a related note, if we’re talking about “longevity escape velocity” (the point where science and technology adds 1 year of lifespan for each year that passes, making it possible for you to live indefinitely), anything that treats any of the diseases of aging would help with that. Right now, heart attack and cancer are the two big killers in the first world; cure either of those, and you’ve extended lifespan by several years already.
Yes, of course. “Curing aging” by itself does little to help with a variety of fatal diseases. People who don’t age will still die from infections, strokes, etc. etc.
For infections, of course. For things like strokes and heart attacks, it partly depends on what you mean by “aging”. Even if your cells aren’t aging, if your organs accumulate larger-scale damage over time and eventually fail, would that be considered aging? It’s a question of definitions, more then anything else, but I would think it would be.