The Lifespan of Humans and Animals Can Be Significantly Extended
Journal Title: Biomedical Journal of Scientific & Technical Research (BJSTR) - Year 2017, Vol 1, Issue 5
Abstract
he averagelifespan of animals varies greatly from a few days to hundreds of years. The Antarctic sponge CinachyraAntarctica has lived for 1550 years, the ArcticaIslandica clam for more than 400 years. The longest-living vertebrate is the Aldabra giant tortoise (Aldabrachelysgigantea), which can live for more than 200 years. The longest-living mammal is the bowhead whale (Balaenamysticetus) (up to 200 years). Another long-live mammal is an elephant, who lives up to 70 years. People in more economically developed countries normally live for 80 years, but there is a group of people over the age of 100 years. We can also find enormous lifespan differences among birds. The golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) lives up to 80 years, the large parrots Ara up to 70 years old, while the small songbirds live 5-10 years. The shortest life has a mayfly (Ephemeroptera) (1-3 days), unless we don’t count the time when the mayfly was a nymph. The short-live mammals are rats (2-4 years) and hamsters (2-3 years). In the animal kingdom the rule is that larger animals live longer, but this rule has a number of exceptions. The purebred dogs make one of the exceptions where, on the contrary, dogs of higher weight live shorter life. It is very likely that the secrecy of longevity is determined in genes. The information about how long will the animal live is written in the genome of all animals. This information is specific and different for each species. It was formed during hundreds of millions of years of evolution and is determined to provide the best conditions for the survival of the species, not the survival of the individual. Today we are at the beginning of the process of identifying and analysing genes responsible for longevity. The first genes related to longevity have already been discovered in mice and humans. Once our knowledge of genes responsible for longevity is expanded, it is realistic to imagine the possible use of this knowledge to significant extension of the lifespan of humans and animals.
Authors and Affiliations
Evžen Korec
Keywords
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- EP ID EP569581
- DOI 10.26717/BJSTR.2017.01.000410
- Views 164
- Downloads 0
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