The key to eternal youth – don't hold your breath

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/22/david-mitchell-key-eternal-youth

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Research published last week may have discovered a way of reversing the ageing process. It's not certain, though. You probably guessed that from the way I introduced the topic. If a definite way of reversing ageing, if the elixir of life itself, had been announced last week, I wouldn't need to make direct reference to it. It would be the main news story, barring further Yewtree revelations, and I'd be able to bring it up more informally. "So this elixir of life we've been hearing about…", I might have written. "Quaking as we now are at the terrifying prospect of immortality, spare a thought for the undertakers!" or: "I can't see property prices sliding any time soon now people won't necessarily ever perish."

So don't get too excited. I'm not about to inform you of something you actually need to know, when what you came here for was a few sarky paragraphs on the Lib Dems to doze off over. The research is very vague and small scale and inconclusive and difficult to understand. A sample of only 10 men underwent this anti-ageing treatment, which isn't very many – although it is very menny. In fact, it's only nine more than the sample group for Spider-Man (10 more if you don't count fictional people), and no one's saying it's reasonable to infer from that study (I think of it as a study) that, if you get bitten by a spider, you'll be able to walk up walls. No one's claiming that. It's simply too early to draw any firm conclusions.

Anyway, in this study it was found that, after five years, the telomeres of the treatment group were, on average, 10% longer, whereas those of the control group were 3% shorter. "The telomeres of the treatment group" is not, I should point out, the title of a fantasy novel but a series of science words which can be used to convey meaning. Specifically, telomeres are stretches of DNA that protect our genetic code. Got that? I expect you can pretty much imagine exactly how that all works.

Well I can't. To be honest, I was just parroting an incomprehensible snippet from an article written by someone who had probably uncomprehendingly cut and pasted the phrase straight from somewhere else. And you can now pass it on to other people. "Telomeres are just stretches of DNA that protect our genetic code," you can say and I doubt you'll get questioned any further. Let's just all pass that phrase around and it'll work just as well as genuinely understanding anything.

That's what social conversation is based on, anyway: the good-humoured exchange of vaguely recognisable noises. Let's not get too deeply into the concepts they represent – after all, it's difficult to hear in this clattery room with that music on. Let's just repeat them to each other: "telomeres", "five-iron", "twerking", "laburnum", "DNA", "CIA", "RNB", "R & LI", "two over for the round", "prune at this time of year", "shoffice", "sashimi". "Telomeres? We've got a hedge of them at the back!" "Oh yes, just off the M4 isn't it? Terrible loos."

If you insist on understanding telomeres better, it might help to hear that, according to Fergus Walsh writing on the BBC website, they're "often compared to the tips on shoelaces as they stop chromosomes from fraying and unravelling and keep the code stable". It's a comforting explanation as it creates the illusion of understanding a complex piece of biology out of the fact that most people understand shoelaces.

The key thing to know about telomeres is it's better if they're longer. Unless it isn't. But it probably is. Having short telomeres seems to be an indicator of being generally screwed: cancer and heart disease and dementia are all abrading away at your poor genetic laces like a microscopic version of whatever it is that makes shoes get cancer. Whereas the long-telomered man walks tall, in securely fastened footwear. They reckon. Probably. Although Dr Lynne Cox, lecturer in biochemistry at Oxford, strikes a note of caution when she says: "Globally increasing telomere length in cancer-prone mice actually predisposes to more aggressive cancers." Good point, well made. Might be worth taking a wedge to this difficult lie. Yes, absolutely nose-to-tail on a Friday at about six. But then it's been a wet year and now they've gone absolutely crazy all over the trellis.

"But what is the treatment?" you must be asking by now. "You may as well tell us what the treatment is – we've stuck with you this long. What is it that lengthened the telomeres of 10 men in a way that might make them live longer and feel younger, or might make them as aggressive-cancer-prone as a mouse, or might make no difference either way? What is the secret?" I'll tell you: it's regular exercise, sensible eating and a less stressful life.

It's a bit of an anticlimax, isn't it? It helps to have a bit of a rest now and again. It helps to have a bit of a walk now and again. It helps to eat your greens. On the face of it, the only interesting thing about this blindingly obvious conclusion is with what meticulous scientific tentativeness and by what a bafflingly circuitous route it's been drawn.

Worse than that, having thought about it a little more, I realise that it's offensively out of step with our culture. Having a rest, taking a stroll, eating carefully: I've never heard anything so geriatric. They might as well have said that the secret to youthful looking skin is smoking a pipe and wearing a cardigan. How do they recommend we all maintain a teenager's sex drive into middle age? Wearing slippers? Do those little tartan trolleys help to reduce cellulite? Our civilisation is far too image-obsessed to accept, even for a second, that mortality-acknowledging prudence can possibly be the way forward.

Age, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. If you want to cheat death, you must first cheat those eyes. You must race around on a motorbike between bungee-jumping engagements, pausing occasionally for massive bouts of cosmetic surgery. You must impersonate youth, spend your money while you do it and let the length of your telomeres go hang – it's your socio-economic duty. Never mind how you feel. Ask any exhausted, starving, coked-up supermodel whether she feels young and she'll tell you: it doesn't matter – it's about how you look.

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