Making human life as long and as comfortable as possible is the main goal of many researchers in the field. The goal splits into numerous specific tasks – from prevention of hereditary diseases and elimination of factors causing various diseases and ailments to modification of genetic mechanisms responsible for aging of human organism. Gerontologists spare no efforts giving us persistent recommendations (which no one would cast doubt at), such as no smoking, regular physical activity, healthy diet, limited consumption of alcohol, weight control, avoid harmful exposure to radiation, toxic chemicals, etc., avoid stress, take regular medical checkups. Hereditary factors, such as the quality of the genome inherited from the parents, play an important role in one's life expectancy.
At the same time, experiments performed on various kinds of living organisms provide confident proof that starvation diet is an effective method of life extension. The most recent results of genetic tinkering with laboratory animals show that certain mutations can help double, quadruple or even tenfold increase the species' regular average life span. Although such animals sometimes showed signs of retardation, by and large their organism functions were close to those of the reference group animals. With the knowledge we currently have, it appears highly probable that researchers in genetic engineering will manage to find which human genes are responsible for aging, and find a method for their alteration. Following the recently completed many-year-long painstaking work of deciphering human genome, work has continued into studying its functions, mechanisms and elements.
In its goals and tasks gerontology is closely related to another discipline – eugenics – the study of hereditary improvement of the human race to create healthier and more intelligent people. Already now there are chemical methods of altering human physical and intellectual capabilities, and in the future it will probably become possible to "correct" certain segments inside the brain in the event of their underdevelopment. The role of eugenics will be increasing with the growth of its potential and as it becomes more and better needed and understood. Here it is appropriate to quote Zbigniew Brzezinski who wrote that "the possibility of biochemical mind control and genetic tinkering with man, including beings that will function like men and reason like them as well, could give rise to some difficult questions."
After all it is difficult to imagine our world where people can live much longer. Francois Fukuyama wrote: "Life extension will wreak havoc with most existing age-graded hierarchies and have dramatic effects on people's attitudes toward death. People might start treating it not as a natural and inevitable aspect of life but as a curable problem like polio or measles." It cannot be ruled out that there would be several billion people entitled to immortality; new ones would join the "club" only in the event of an accidental death of one of its permanent members.
