Nobel laureate Ramakrishnan on ‘social’ impact of slowing ageing and a ‘magic pill’

There are significant ‘social consequences’ of our obsession with slowing down ageing to increase our longevity on earth in recent times, Nobel prize-winning scientist Venki Ramakrishnan warns. It will be simpler to accept that our life on earth is limited, believes this acclaimed India-born structural biologist.

In conversation with author Manu Pillai at a session titled “Why we die” at the Bangalore Literary Festival, Ramakrishnan on Sunday (December 15) started off talking about how, in the past 40 or 50 years, due to all the advances in biology, humans are really understanding the basis for why we age and die and this gives them a foundation for being able to do something about it.

The scientist, whose new book on the science of ageing has been making waves, drove home the social consequences of trying to turn back the clock.

Obsession with dying

One of the consequences of our quest for immortality, for example, can lead the same political leaders to come back to power, Ramakrishnan pointed out.

“Do we want another same Biden-Trump Presidential contest 10 years later? Biden had the sense to step down…Or, we may get a new set of generative diseases,” he added.

What’s good for individuals who want to keep living and staying healthy by popping statins or blood pressure medicines, may not be good for society, Ramakrishnan said.

Also read: Nobel laureate Ramakrishnan discusses why we age and die in new book

According to the biologist, humans are the only people who know that they have a certain lifespan.

“Ever since we discovered that we have been obsessed about dying,” he said.

Science of ageing

On why he wrote a book on the science of ageing called Why we die, the science of Aging and Longevity, Ramakrishnan told his spell-bound audience that many societies already have ageing populations and are worrying about it.

“There are projections that India too will have to soon contend with an ageing population, who will need extra care and this is another reason to study ageing. There are 700 companies investing in longevity – and there have been some breakthroughs in ageing. But I have been irritated by all the hype and, since I was close to the field, I decided to write an objective view,” he explained.

According to Ramakrishnan, evolution does not care how long you will live; it is more focused on how successful you are in propagating your genes. “There are insects like the mayfly that live for just a day, butterflies for weeks, and the Greenland shark that lives for 400 years. It is tied to evolution of that species — to allow it to maximise growth and reproduce and give it time to pass on its genes — so evolution is selecting for reproductive ability,” he said.

Larger animals tend to live longer unlike a mouse because they are more resistant to predators and they get a longer time to find a mate and reproduce — so there’s a rough relationship between size and longevity and lifespan in these animals.

Also read: Why do humans age and don’t live for 200 years? Reason may be dinosaurs

So, Ramakrishnan believed death is not programmed, it simply happens because we accumulate damage.

In his talk, the biologist further elaborated on how, in some species, it is not worth investing in repairing all that damage — but in some species it is. It boils down to growth and reproduction or maintenance and repair.

The magic trio

But better than any anti-aging medicine or “magic pill’ on the market, Ramakrishnan said that “old advice” turns out to be the best medicine.

Ramakrishnan strongly advocated a moderate and healthy diet, including lots of fruits and vegetables; exercise, including weight training, that induces reaction that helps us repair damage (it even helps with regenerating our mitochondria); and a third leg to this trio is sleep, which is very underappreciated.

“It turns out that sleep is when a lot of the repair and maintenance of our body goes on,” he said. Lack of sleep makes you age faster and number of diseases can double due to sleep deprivation, he said. All of which (the trio he prescribes) have no side effects and better than anything on the market now.

Also read: Why no two people age the same way: A biologist explains

Ramakrishnan also highlighted two aspects of ageing. “Social isolation is bad for health, shoving people in retirement homes is bad, older people need to have a social network and need to feel a sense of purpose.”

“But I want to say that those three things are also useful for reducing your cholesterol and your blood pressure. And yet, I’m on statins and I’m on anti-blood pressure medication. Why? Because the things I did on my own weren’t quite enough. Things kept creeping up with age. And so, I suppose you could say one of the goals of the aging community is to supplement that, to go beyond what you can do yourself,” he pointed out.