72 Chapter 9
reach 115. The longest lifespan recorded with certainty is that of the
French woman Jeanne Calment who died in 1997 at the age of 122
years. Although the improvement in medical care has undoubtedly
increased the expectation of life throughout the world, there is little
evidence that it has increased the maximum human lifespan.
The wish to live a long lifespan has also been accompanied by the
belief that there may be ways and means of achieving this end. One
was the search for the fountain of youth, another was the alchemists
fruitless attempts to find the philosopher’s stone, or the elixir of life. In
more recent times, some have considered the properties of the intestinal
flora of carp, which were reported, incorrectly, to live several hundred
years. This was the theme exploited by Aldous Huxley in his novel
After Many a Summer. A more serious claim was made by a famous
scientist Elie Metchnikoff, that one of the major causes of ageing was
the production of toxins by bacteria in our intestines. He also proposed
that yoghurt containing billions of live lactobacilli could neutralise
these toxins and extend the lifespan. In support of his view, he cited the
long lifespan of inhabitants of the Caucasus, whose diet consistently
included yoghurt. Metchnikoff’s views lead to an explosion in the sale
and consumption of yoghurt in Western countries.
These early claims have been followed by many others in recent
times. Anna Aslan, a Romanian physician, believed that procaine,
incorporated into a product known as Gerovital, rejuvenated elderly
people. In this case her claims were backed up by her treatment
of elderly down-and-outs in Bucharest. Once provided with a clean,
hygienic environment, and well fed, it was not surprising that they
showed rather clear signs of rejuvenation! Aslan’s claims were never
substantiated, but there has been no shortage of other comparable ones,
each with many adherents. One treatment popular in Germany and
Switzerland is “cell therapy”. This takes several forms, but the basic
claim is that extracts of foetal cells of sheep or other animals, when
injected into people, has significant rejuvenating effects. A course of
treatment is very expensive, and having paid this sum, clients are
liable to justify it by saying it was successful. More important, the
clinics which provide this treatment have never supplied, from their
extensive records, any data showing that their clients had an increased
lifespan, in comparison to the population at large. One can be sure that
if lifespan extension actually occurred, the facts would be included
in the brochures which extoll the beneficial effects of the treatment.
There is, of course, absolutely no scientific basis for the claims made.
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