Quest for youth will take us to the stars
My husband laughs at me every night, when I smother my face in antiageing unguents in the hope of fighting off the inevitable. “How much money do you spend on those jars full of useless creams?” he mocks, as if he won’t mind me looking like a leather handbag in 15 years’ time.
The quest for youth is often seen as sheer vanity. Now it looks as if it might actually be able to propel us forward scientifically. Scientists at the University of New South Wales have created a pioneering vitamin drug treatment that actually reverses ageing. The elderly mice that were given it reportedly lived 20 per cent longer, with their cells appearing the same as young mice after a week. “This is the closest we are to a safe and effective anti-ageing drug that’s perhaps only three to five years away from being on the market,” one of the research professors said.
And on top of the antiageing effects, they have also speculated that it might help Nasa get its astronauts to Mars by preventing the effects of cosmic radiation. So the next time my other half calls me a fool for splashing out on the supposed elixir of youth, I shall simply tell him that I’m doing my bit for space exploration.