“Full Measure” host Sharyl Attkisson speaks to Howard University’s Antonei Csoka about new research into extending lifespans:

SHARYL ATTKISSON: Leading the charge are visionary scientists whose work is transforming theory into tangible advances. Visionary scientist David Sinclair has popularized supplements that boost levels of a crucial coenzyme, potentially delaying age-related decline. At the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, researcher Eric Verdin explores how metabolic shifts can extend healthy years. Maria Blasco of Spain’s National Cancer Research Center focuses on telomeres, a piece of DNA at the end of animal chromosomes protecting them from degradation. Nir Barzilai, director of the Institute for Aging Research at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, is leading a study testing the diabetes drug metformin as an anti-aging agent. And Vadim Gladyshev at Harvard is investigating rejuvenation by reprogramming or resetting cells without turning them cancerous. As researchers work to crack the code on aging and how to slow or stop it, there’s a philosophical and scientific divide: Is aging a natural, programmed part of life, or a treatable condition akin to a disease that can be cured? ANTONEI CSOKA: I see aging as a kind of great challenge to humanity. It’s not something that we have to accept as inevitable. SHARYL ATTKISSON: Antonei Csoka is an associate professor at Howard University who studies the cell and molecular biology of aging. Do you see it as an illness, a disease, a common process that could be reversed? ANTONEI CSOKA: Great question. So I actually call it a meta-disease, in the sense that it is the cause behind almost every other disease. So it’s like the molecular damage, the DNA mutations, the telomere loss, even the epigenetic changes accumulate over lifespan and lead to these diverse diseases. But they’re all really being caused by aging. So it’s like the generative mechanism behind all of them. It’s the cause and the diseases are the effect. SHARYL ATTKISSON: Whatever the theory, advances are arriving at breakneck speed. And there’s been an explosion in the practice of medicine surrounding aging and longevity. Csoka says he hopes we’re on the cusp of virtual immortality. Do you think in your lifetime we’ll be seeing people live to what age, you know, more people living to 120? ANTONEI CSOKA: I think it’s quite possible. Yeah. I think we’re actually in an incredibly unique time. Like maybe a time that only happens once in human history. And that time is where the people alive today could determine whether they live a very long time, you know, potentially like, you know, extreme long old age, you know, a thousand years, for example. SHARYL ATTKISSON: You think that’s possible that people can live a thousand years? ANTONEI CSOKA: Yeah, I do. Yeah. I don’t think there’s any like, biological law that, that denies that possibility. But in the past, you know, people dreamed of, of immortality and the fountain of youth and so on, but it was basically impossible. Like the, the science didn’t exist. And in the future, I think it will be solved. Like it will be, you know, say a hundred years from now, the aging will be fully understood and potentially fully reversible. So we’re kind of in a very unique, very unique sliver of time.

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