Meet the doctor who is convinced he will live to 150

Dr Alex Zhavoronkov, director of the UK-based Biogerontology Research Foundation

2015

Medical advancements mean that life expectancy is now far greater than we believe, an ageing expert has claimed

An anti-ageing expert is convinced he will live until he is 150 and claims healthy Brits will live far longer than they expect.

Dr Alex Zhavoronkov, director of the UK-based Biogerontology Research Foundation think-tank, argues that medical advancements and the widespread use of antibiotics mean that life expectancy is now much greater than we believe.

And to test the theory he has committed himself to living a life that should give him the best chance of living to a ripe old age.

^{Austrian researchers have declared that old age now does not begin until 74 because of advances in health and medicine}

He takes 100 different drugs and supplements each day, exercises regularly, goes for frequent check ups and monitors his own blood biochemistry and cell counts. He also vaccinates as soon as vaccines become available and claims to have ‘suppressed cravings’ for marriage, children and material assets to concentrate on anti-ageing research.

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His comments come just weeks after Austrian researchers declared that old age now does not begin until 74 because of advances in health and medicine.

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Dr Alex Zhavoronkov, 37, said: “I think that even people past their 70s, who are in good health, have a fighting chance to live past 150.

“All of the supercentenarians alive today lived through tough times, when no antibiotics were available and our understanding of human biology was not that far from the stone age.

“Longevity of these people is attributed mostly to luck and stress resistance attributed to multiple factors including genetics.

^{The bristlecone pines in White Mountain, California, are the oldest trees in the world - some have reached 5000 years}

“But people alive today will soon see the fruits of biomedical research come to market and gradually reduce mortality from many diseases and extend healthy longevity.

“I think that in two-three years we will have effective pharmacological solutions based on already approved drugs that will help people remain younger and healthier until other advances in regenerative medicine and gene therapy become available to further extend their longevity."

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Dr Zhavoronkov believes the biggest ageing culprits are not biological, but economic, social and behavioural and that much of the battle still lies in people’s heads.

“The toughest level of ageing to address is psychological aging,” he added.

“People are evolved to accept their certain decline and demise and human behavior and attitude to life changes throughout life and events like child birth or retirement trigger many processes that are very difficult to reverse.

“People form their longevity expectations primarily using their family history and country averages and are not prepared to change their expectations quickly.”

A baby girl born today is now expected to life to an average age of 82.8 years and a boy to 78.8 years, according to the Office for National Statistics.

But many health experts believe that if people embraced all the known anti-ageing interventions that are now documented, most could live far longer.

Simple lifestyle changes such as walking regularly, cutting down on sugar, salt and fat, and taking advantage of drugs that already exist, like statins, could all extend life.

^{Exercise can stave off the effects of old age}

However trying to persuade people to do what is good for them has proved tricky, as Cardiff University found.

In 1979, 2,500 men were asked to follow five simple rules – eat well, work out, drink less, keep their weight down and never smoke.

Four decades on, just 25 pensioners managed to stick to the plan. But they are all far fitter and healthier than those who gave up.

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Dr Peter Ellwood, who carried out the study said: “We found that we could make read reductions in areas like cancer and dementia. People weren’t just living longer, they were healthier.

“Living a healthy lifestyle is better than any pill and have proved that it is possible to fit and active after the age of 65.”

Dr Zhavoronkov believes that rapid advances in medicines and technology will make it possible to extend human lives well beyond what was evolutionary necessary; to survive long enough to reproduce.

“Even if you look at the previous century, life expectancies in developed countries doubled even without major technological interventions,” he said.

“So unless our civilization suffers a major blow from one of the catastrophic events like a global economic crisis, rise of militant religions or bioterrorism, many people alive today will be living extraordinarily long lives and take an active role in further human evolution.”

Dr Zhavoronkov is also a professor at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and heads the laboratory of regenerative medicine at the Federal Clinical Research Centre for Pediatric Hematology, Oncology and Immunology in Moscow

He is the co-founder and CEO of Insilico Medicine, a biotech company dedicated to drug discovery for cancer and aging located at Johns Hopkins University.

Dozens of Britons missing after Nepal earthquake and avalanche

   

Laura Wood, Julia Carroll and Daniel Mazur are all currently unaccounted for

A woman who rang her father from Nepal to wish him happy birthday hours before an earthquake struck is among dozens of Britons missing feared dead

Dozens of British travellers and climbers are among the hundreds feared missing or dead after being caught up in the devastating Nepalese earthquake and Everest avalanche that followed.

The area is an increasingly popular destination for British tourists and the number of those missing is likely to grow as more families fail to hear from their loved ones.

It emerged on Saturday night that one Suffolk woman feared to have been caught up in the disaster had rung her father just a few hours before the earthquake struck to wish him a happy birthday.

But 22-year-old Julia Carroll’s family have heard nothing from her since that call.

Her father, John Carroll, 59, from Boxford, Suffolk, said his daughter had been planning to go on a white water rafting trip on Saturday, but he did not know if she had managed to escape the earthquake when it hit Kathmandu.

He told The Telegraph: “I spoke to her on the phone on Friday afternoon when she rang home to wish me a happy birthday. We are desperately worried. It’s a tragic situation out there, with so many deaths and so much destruction and we can only hope she is safe and gets in touch.”

Miss Carroll, who graduated in law last summer, had been travelling since February and had been in Nepal for three weeks.

Another Briton feared to be missing, Laura Wood, 23, from Huddersfield, was described by friends as a “glowing lovely beautiful young girl often dressed in hippy type clothing”.

Miss Wood had been trekking in the Himalayas without any means of contact, leaving her family and friends unable to get in touch with her.

A large number of British travellers in their 30s, 40s and 50s who had used their lifesavings to pay for a trip of a lifetime to climb Everest are also still unaccounted for.

Six out of the eight teams of Britons who had booking the adventure holiday with Jagged Globe, a travel company, are missing.

Tom Briggs, the firm’s director, said: “We are still waiting to hear from our teams. The phone lines have been jammed. We have eight teams there at the moment and only two have checked in so far. We have about 70 people out there. They are mostly British people but we also have people from Australia and Ireland. The people travelling had been saving up for a trip of a lifetime for an adventure holiday.

“One team had been travelling between camps at the time, another was trekking on Mera Peak and they were due to go to the mountains and we’re hoping our teams are safe.”

Members of the firm’s Mera Peak Expedition team, who left the UK on April 3, and the members of its Annapurna Circuit team, who started on April 9, are safe in the Summit Hotel, Kathmandu.

But there has been no news of the teams on other climbing routes, including Dhaulagiri Circuit, Mera and Island Peak, and a film team in Gorak Shep associated with the Everest expedition.

A Gurkha with the British company was killed following an avalanche a year ago.

Mr Briggs added: “Our base camp had been hit by the avalanche. I heard that from David Hamilton, one of the expedition leaders. We’re in touch with base camp, satellite communications are not completely reliable, they are phoning as and when they can.”

There were also fears for Daniel Mazur, a Bristol-based mountaineer who was at Camp One, half way up Mount Everest, when the avalanche triggered by the earthquake struck. He managed to write on Twitter: “A massive earthquake just hit Everest. Base Camp has been severely damaged. Our team is caught in Camp 1. Please pray for everyone.”

Two hours later he added: “Aftershock! Everest team is in camp 1, hanging on. Icefall route destroyed,” adding another two hours later: “We felt the earthquake on the north side but have no damage and all are safe.”

However nothing was heard from him after that.

Fears were also growing for the safety of Tara Bradshaw, 24, from Kemptown, Brighton, who was photographed last month sitting in a café in Fort Kochi, in the Indian state of Kerala, where she had been travelling with her boyfriend Alex Parry.

Mr Parry, who returned to Brighton while Miss Bradshaw went on to Tamil Nadu and then Nepal, said: “I spoke to her three days ago, when she was in Kathmandu. She was meant to be going to a festival nearby but it has been cancelled.

^{Officials said 10 people were killed when an avalanche buried parts of Mount Everest's base camp}

“We were travelling together – we started in India, and I could only stay for a month. She was volunteering in India for a month and travelling around Nepal. She’s adventurous. She’s travelled on her own two times before. She’s very resilient. I think she would have been scared. But as long she was not hurt, she would have done everything she could to help. Volunteering was her main point of focus.”

Miss Bradshaw, a graduate of the University of Brighton who was planning to do a master’s degree next year, is described as half British, half Indian, with medium long dark hair and a nose piercing on her left side. She frequently wears a red wristband on her right wrist from the Boom Festival in Portugal.

She was among several people whose details have been posted on a Google Person Finder document online, where friends and relatives have given details of their loved ones in the hope they, or someone who has come across them, will contact them with information.

Included on the list is Sebastian Lovera, from Tonbridge, Kent, who is described as wearing a red and black down jacket and brown Karrimore walking boots with a hole in the left foot.

^{Tara Bradshaw, 24, from Brighton}

Also listed as missing were four Britons named as Jay Devine, Katie Hill, Andy Kimmerling - who was caught up in an avalanche in the Himalayas while on honeymoon with his new wife Suzanne last October - and one identified only as “Marcus”.

In other cases the list revealed what appeared to be good news, with notices posted that information had subsequently emerged about some of those previously listed as missing.

Isaac Baldwin, 22, from Hyde, Cheshire, contacted his family on Saturday to let them know he was alive.

​Three others who had been listed as missing - Peter Roddis, 26, from Brighton, Oliver de Paolis from London and Jade House, 24, from Hampshire - were also understood to be safe.​