Prof. David Aigos offers ways to prolong life. interview
We may not stay young forever, we certainly won't live forever, but it is also very possible that we can extend our lives to a considerable extent, and above all - live them without dangerous diseases. At least this is what professor David Aigos, an oncologist and geneticist from the University of Southern California, and the founder of several genetic information companies, passionately claims. Aigos vigorously promotes new medical technologies, but at the same time he says that we can already prevent most serious diseases today. "There is a 2,000-year-old pill that, if taken every day, reduces the death rate from cancer by 37%, heart disease by 22% and stroke by 17%. Her name is aspirin. These are data from studies conducted over 25 years on 600 people," says Aigos. "These are other relatively old studies. When the new technology comes in, it will be powerful."
In addition to aspirin, Aigos recommends taking statins to reduce cholesterol, taking care of flu vaccinations, a healthy diet and avoiding prolonged sitting. If it's so simple and so helpful, why don't most people implement the advice? "Most of these behaviors will only benefit us in ten or twenty years," he explains. "Without measurable data about our health, which will now show us the benefit, most people forget about the matter on a daily basis. For example, I wear a small bracelet that measures how much I move during the day. There is clear data that movement reduces the risk of cancer and heart disease, while sitting for five hours is equivalent to smoking a pack of cigarettes. I wasn't aware of the amount of time I was sitting, but since I started measuring it, I make sure to move more. The problem is that most health issues do not have a direct measure. There is no blood test that shows your health status, so we need to find other ways to raise awareness."
Price Tag
One of the ways Aigos suggests is attaching a financial price tag to a lifestyle that clearly has negative effects on our future health. "If you didn't get a flu vaccine, and you get infected with the virus, it increases your risk of getting cancer or heart disease ten percent in a decade, because of the inflammatory process that the flu creates. I want people to think not about today, but about tomorrow," he says. "There are companies in the US that approve smoking, but raise the price of health insurance for smokers by 2.5 times. We need to have a price for our behavior. Everyone has the right to smoke, be overweight, sit all day, but the question is whether society should pay for it. I don't think she should."
Look at the whole system
Aigos participated this week in the President's Conference in Jerusalem, where he presented these ideas in a panel on the medicine of the future as they appear in his books "The End of Diseases" and "The Short Guide to a Long Life" which will be published next year. However, he is also aware that it is impossible to prevent all diseases, and we need new treatment methods. These too, he believes, will come from a change in perception. "Two or three times a week I have to look into the eyes of a cancer patient, and tell him 'I have no more medicines to treat you.' I don't want to do it anymore. The best way to treat the disease is to prevent it. But not all diseases can be prevented. We need to improve treatment", he says and explains: "We need to take a step back, look at the entire system and move us from a cancer state to a healthy state. A decade ago, an experiment was done on women after breast cancer, and they saw that in women who received treatment for calcium leakage, the cancer recurrence rate decreased by 50%, because breast cancer metastasizes to the bones. This was one of the biggest advances in breast cancer, and it is a treatment that is not at all related to the cancer itself. This illustrates that we need to look at the entire system, and when we do that there will be a real revolution in medicine."
Change starts from the bottom
Aigos' vision does not really fit with the state of modern medicine, where doctors do not look at the patient, but at the disease - the damaged organ, the cells, sometimes even the genes. The revolution, he says, should start from the bottom - from the patients themselves. "Medicine will not change from above, not the doctors will change it. Everyone will change her. I want patients to learn about their bodies and come to the doctors with questions. We will change medicine from the ground up. I'm on a crusade to change medicine, because I don't want to continue doing what I'm doing now - treating patients with advanced cancer."
Until his crusade changes the face of medicine, it might be worth listening to his advice about a healthy lifestyle. In the worst case it won't help, and judging by the slim, healthy and vigorous appearance of Aegus himself - it's certainly not harmful.
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Stress treatment can prolong life
It is no longer possible to know who to believe
One study makes some claim and another makes a claim that completely contradicts or refutes it.
There are so many interests, even in studies that are published - and those with interests are of course the funders of the research.
On the other hand, there are also many Rorians of sorts who distort science in their favor and vegans of sorts who claim that eating meat (all types of meat including fish) is harmful to the body but on the other hand there will be deficiencies in essential vitamins that can only be obtained through meat products.
On the other hand, there is a study that was published not long ago that the vitamins (antioxidants to be more precise) do not necessarily protect against diseases and prolong life and it may actually be that they shorten life (at least some of them or beyond some amount consumed) and encourage the development of certain diseases.
There is a lot of conflicting information and a lot of interests behind this information to the point that it is difficult to understand what is really true and what is not.
Even if we know more or less what is right to do, we will not know what the right dose is and how to do it.
D! in the Holy Land
And I thought it was the collision with the second car that kills.... What a shame I am.
skeptic,
I don't know about studies, but a friend who studied medicine (I don't know what that means) claimed that they learned that the number one cause of death from car accidents is aspirin.
To introduce foreign active substances into the body with the assumption that they will benefit the body after 20 years?
Hahahaha Total irresponsibility.
incidentally. A statistical study was done on a large group of people who took statins for a long period of time. The results of the study are: taking the statins did not lower mortality at all.
The responsible indication for taking statins is only when the taker is in clear and immediate danger to life if he does not take it (danger due to blockage of blood vessels). Statins cause a disruption in metabolism, so they should not be taken just like that "just in case".
Taking aspirin also causes damage to the body, because it damages the blood clotting mechanism. But unlike statins, according to what I know at least, there has not been a large-scale comparative study comparing the results of taking aspirin or not taking aspirin for those who are not in clear danger of blood vessel blockage. Regarding the taking of aspirin by those *since we are in such danger* - extensive studies have shown that taking it reduced serious events in the blood vessels, so here it is possible to consider taking it.
I am the last to defend the pharmaceutical companies and last September I cited what Prof. Ada Yonath said against the fact that the pharmaceutical companies do not invest in the development of new antibiotics, but apparently it is not possible without them, nevertheless we live longer today than before the period when the pharmaceutical companies invested huge sums in research and development.
Father, you are absolutely wrong. This is not about a delusional New Age person. This is a doctor who has been treating cancer for many years.
I read his book, and I actually got the impression that he is wrong in urging healthy people to take statins. Statins are manufactured by pharmaceutical companies, and he makes sure to ignore the side effects of these products.
In any case, the book "The End of Diseases" is a thought-provoking book and recommended to read.
Why would they take a person who wants to renounce all the achievements of science and medicine and return the life expectancy to 40?
The fact that you are irresponsible does not mean that Shimon Peres should be irresponsible.
The man is a guest at Shimon Peres' conference, so his words should be taken with a limited guarantee. And the content proves it: he suggests taking medicines and vaccines, and his goal is one: to enrich the pharmaceutical companies! Peres, as a member of the "Bilderberg" organization, has a clear interest in the capitalists getting even richer and that we will take out of our pockets and put into their pockets. So transparent... Why didn't they host a doctor who would recommend the bark of the willow tree - whose virtues caused the pharmaceutical companies to create a substance with similar properties? Because you cannot get rich from this plant, but medicines can be pushed to people in abundance if they only promise them that they will be healthy because of it.
The man is a guest at Shimon Peres' conference, so his words should be taken with a limited guarantee. And the content proves it: he suggests taking medicines and vaccines, and his goal is one: to enrich the pharmaceutical companies! Peres, as a member of the "Bilderberg" organization, has a clear interest in the capitalists getting even richer and that we will take out of our pockets and put into their pockets. So transparent... Why didn't they host a doctor who would recommend the bark of the willow tree - whose virtues caused the pharmaceutical companies to create a substance with similar properties? Because you cannot get rich from this plant, but medicines can be pushed to people in abundance if they only promise them that they will be healthy because of it.
The calculation is completely wrong, the company no longer pays for it, the company is rewarded for it.
Valuing life only increases the number of illnesses, medications, and relief, and causes a financial burden on the entire population.
It even raises apartment prices.
Even if they manage to prevent some diseases, there will always be other chronic diseases that will take their place.
So that in any case the expenses will increase, as the life expectancy increases.
Which basically means that the longer the life expectancy, the more money you need to pay for insurance.