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Eccentric person? Definitely. But as we report this week, Mr. Johnson is not alone. He is part of a growing movement that sees the human body as another piece of hardware to be hacked, customized and advanced. The name of “Human Enhancement” includes Mr. Johnson and his comrades, including Peter Theal and Elon Musk, are searching for life expansion, brain implants and drugs that increase the mind and body.
A project will be easier to recur from a crank and is an uncomfortable echo of the eugenics movement of the 20th century early 20th century. But it would be a mistake to dismiss all forms of human growth. The idea that the drug should seek to increase the body, not to restore it for health when it is wrong, it has a lot of ability. The key to maximizing the benefits and reducing risks will be that they take out the quack and bring this fast growing project into scientific mainstream.
A wannabe supernatural has a large menu of techniques to choose. Some options are already found in medicine cabinets. For example, drug metformin has been prescribed in diabetic patients for decades. In mice, at least, it seems to expand the lifetime. Those results have not been confirmed in humans, but the aspirations of Methuselah (including Mr. Johnson) are taking anyway.
Ritilin, meditation-focus activity disorder, and testosterone, main male sex hormones and a powerful anabolic steroids are prescribed to treat, noted to have knototropics, drugs that promote cognitive performance. Other chemicals are less familiar. Nicotinamide adenin dinuclyotide, known as NAD+, is important for cellular metabolism. It is not only believed that it is a nootropic; It also has anti-aging properties.
Adventure can do more than pop pills. They can travel to Prospira, a light regulated location in Honduras installed with the help of Mr. Theal. There they can be inserted into their cells so that their body can be tried to make a protein called Folistatin. The clinic states that it will promote muscle growth and prolong telomeres, the chemical cap at the ends of the chromosome that becomes shorter with age.
Still more rigid option is the brain-computer interface (BCI), a tool that is directly designed to pass signals between biological brain and silicone chips. Some can be worn externally. But others are directly transplanted into the brain. Many disabled human patients have used devices – including a firm created by the neurlink, a firm installed by Mr. Musk – to control the computer with impressive precision. But this is only a proof of the concept: neurlinks were established, because in the view of Mr. Musk, only a human brain that can achieve “symbiosis with artificial intelligence”, can expect intelligent machines to remain relevant in the world.
Many people want to try these ideas. Human beings have always sought ways to promote their powers, from large -scale education to wrist clock. If a brain-boosting seems to be chemical, it seems foreigner or impossible, consider that the world produces about 11 meters tonnes of coffee annually, and not just because people like taste. The market for supplements already changes the pills of $ 485bn-pills every year, despite less evidence that many of them are very good.
The human growth project suffers from two related problems. The first is that it is a baffling mixture of state -of -the -art science and old -fashioned snake oil. Some of its views look really promising, some are honest long shots and many are designed to fly their money innocent customers. The second problem is that the poor reputation of this quakery is afraid of the type of large investment that can help to pursue enhancement more quickly and safely. The industry is once dangerous and lack of cash.
To fix this, governments must create an environment in which rigorous tests can be done more easily. This would mean to rethink the purpose of medical regulation. For decades, regulators have focused on treatments that are designed to restore sick people at the basis of health. Attempts to improve those who are already healthy, or to fight natural processes, therefore neglected. For example, aging is usually not classified as a disease, which makes it difficult to run tests designed to “treat”. It begins to change: American regulators recently approved a test of metformin as an anti-aging drug. Improvement needs to go ahead and faster.
Better rules will help patients sort from brass. They will also be in the interest of honest researchers, as an official seal of approval will be worth much money. And the profit can be very large. Most people enjoy being alive and dislike the effects of old growth. A drug that slowed down the aging of all in the US to provide enough benefits to increase life expectancy up to one year is at $ 38TRN.
We can reconstruct it
Now thinking about human growth will help governments to prepare to deal with downside. Technologies such as BCI can be voluntary in principle. But if they work with some hopes with half the work, they will release those who deny them a major loss. With most technologies, from cars to antibiotics, the rich will gain first access. How would it be to live in a society where rich are not only better, but also very strong, clever and long, to boot?
The severe human growth looks like science fiction. But there is no reason to think that it is impossible. If and when real advances change, the world can change very quickly. Think of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, which were in development for years before the explosion occurred in the demand for overnight. It is better for governments that now and when Mr. Johnson and his fellow Biohakars enlarged it, some rules should be caught on hop.
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© 2025, The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved. From The Economist, published under license. The original material can be found on www.economist.com
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