On Thursday evening, February 11th at 6:30 PM, at the Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theatre in New York City, a new film called “To Age or Not to Age” will be shown for the first time.  Immediately after the screening filmmaker Robert Kane Pappas (“Orwell Rolls in his Grave”) will lead a panel discussion featuring three of the most renowned and electrifying experts in the field of molecular biology and aging: Dr. Leonard P. Guarante , M.I.T., Aubrey de Gray, Methuselah Foundation, and Dr. Robert Butler, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Why Survive? (1975), and founding director of the National Institute on Aging.  They will come together to debate and confront the movie’s fundamental assumption – that science’s ability to halt virtually all degenerative infirmities related to aging is here now, and that there is no reason why life expectancy shouldn’t exponentially lengthen, almost immediately. Simply stated, evolution as we generally think of it is speeding up and overtaking he ravages of disease.

As 20th century man conquered the boundaries once fixed by the physical realities of time and distance the question many visionaries asked was, “What if time itself could be extended, if we could live longer, if we could double the age of man?”  It  seemed a crazy ambition, but  it was exactly what the scientists and researchers of the 20th Century accomplished.  They had brought the average Life Span from 42 in 1900 to over 80 in just  a hundred years.

Less than twenty years ago two students of Dr. Leonard Guarante left some yeast cells chilling over winter break in 1991.  When they returned  they were surprised to find to find a few had actually survived.  In time the caloric restriction they had experienced  was understood to trigger an important enzyme in the body,  one which had a key role to play in orchestrating the behavior of energy producing processes in the cell.  In evolutionary terms,  this ensured that in times of stress (e.g. food shortage) fundamental cell processes were being optimized to keep the creature youthful  and fertile for longer periods.

As ever greater insights were gained into the metabolic effects caloric restriction triggered, scientists exploring the “French Paradox”, the positive effects of red wine on a high-fat diet, discovered a natural agent in the skins of red grapes, Resveratrol, which produced the same effect in mice as caloric restriction but without the gnawing hunger.  In the last three years, since the first wave of exposure in late 2006 was triggered by the report – in a famous study by David Sinclair of Harvard - that this Resveratrol had kept fat mice healthy and youthful and extended their lives by phenomenal amounts, ever more far reaching studies have been conducted showing beneficial links between Resveratrol therapies and the remission (and not just the prevention) of cancer and diabetes.

The discovery is both elegant and simple – disease and aging are often one and the same thing.  A body whose cellular activity is slowing down and producing errors in cell division is a welcome host for the illnesses.  Therefore, keeping the individual cells in clean working order (i.e. “youthful”) will produce greater resistance to these diseases (including cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis, diabetes and neurodegeneration) and lead to a longer, healthier life. Given the long history of elixirs and snake-oil that promised eternal youth and perfect health, professional scientists  hesitate to extrapolate too much based on the studies so far.  (The film also pries open the complex politics and procedures of the scientific/medical establishments – a theme worthy of a film entirely in its own right.)  Nonetheless, the excitement of these dedicated researchers is palpable.  They know something big is coming our way.  After seeing this film, you’ll know it, too.

Thursday, February 11^th may well become an historic evening and a life-changing experience to anyone who witnesses it.