150 Supplements Away From Immortality

  In mid October newspapers and media outlets around the world picked up on the story of Ray Kurzweil, Google Engineering Director, a futurist who believes that we are close to realizing everlasting life and the key to it is supplements. Kurzweil takes a whopping 150 supplements a day and states its the first bridge, of three, to cross on the way to immortality.  A DailyMail article stated that, “The idea is to build enough bridges to ensure that the body holds out long enough for life lengthening technology to come into its own.  He has likened the biology of the body to computer software and believe we are all ‘out of date.’” There are three bridges Kurzweil stated and he hopes supplements will keep him healthy enough to reach the ‘nanotech revolution.’  The first bridge: stay as healthy as possible with diet, exercise, and current medicine with the goal being to get to bridge two.  Two being the biotechnology revolution, where we could theoretically reprogram biology away from disease.  Bridge three is to go beyond biology to the nanotech revolution.  There you would have little robots that augment your immune system.  These robots would theoretically recognize all disease and if a new disease emerged the robots would be reprogrammed to deal with the new pathogens.  According to Kurzweil such robots would fight disease, improve health, and allow people to be remain active longer. Google is hoping to help expand the human lifespan with its new company Calico, which aims to make improvements in human health and well-being.  Kurzweil has previously predicted that by the late 2020s humans will be able to eat as much junk food as they want because everyone will have a nanobot injected into their bodies that will provide all the necessary nutrients while simultaneously eliminating fat. I read this DailyMail article in sheer disbelief.  Mostly for the 150 supplements.  My husband and I debated whether he takes them in pill form or has some sort of IV bag with all of the ‘required’ supplements mixed into one big cocktail.  I take a grand total of one vitamin a day...a chewy multivitamin...mostly because we give them to our daughter. To be honest I have a hard time believing that supplements, even when they are combined with a healthy lifestyle, are capable of prolonging life.  DNA has so much to do with which diseases we are prone to or whether our body will just shut down at a certain age. The theory that supplements will prolong life is interesting at best.  Beyond that however, it creates a huge dictotomy between the middle class and the wealthy.  Even at just $10/supplement 150 bottles for an average 3 month supply would run $1,500 and cost $6,000 over the course of 1 year.  Kurzweil is 65 and even if he only needs the supplements for another 20 years before “Bridge 2” happens it would cost $120,000. Don’t get me wrong...I’m all for healthy lifestyle and promoting health...but this almost goes too far.  Beyond the religious and moral implications, there are also the logistical implications of feeding all of these people who just refuse to die after the nanotech revolution.  We can hardly feed the people we have here today in the world.  Or maybe they would only be the super wealthy that could afford these little nanobots shot into their veins...     Rachael's personal blog:  threerights.wordpress.com