Comment by w3gS34k354K7978

I find those estimates believable in a narrow interpretation of the question - i.e. if we solve cancer but change nothing else. I would expect a longevity M.D. to understand the spirit of the question and answer accordingly, though. I'm curious which podcast / doc this was?

It's true that solving cancer, heart disease, and even all other similarly deadly diseases, would not automatically mean humans living indefinitely, because there's still cellular senescence to contend with.

Fortunately, we've effectively solved senescence (or at least it seems we're well on our way). Check out the picture of the twin mice from David Sinclair's lab (https://sinclair.hms.harvard.edu/research) - it's hard to believe the two mice were born at the same time...

And if I recall correctly, they didn't even do any sort of telomere modification in that study either... Don't quote me on that. But telomeres are another potent avenue towards >10x extension of life span, and also as it turns out, fairly trivial to lengthen and thereby allow a cell to continue mitosis indefinitely.

The problem to solve is cancer, though. Telomeres limit the number of times a cell can divide by design, and seemingly the purpose of limiting division in the first place is to mitigate risk of developing cancers.