I’m as Old as I’m Gonna Get

I just read that scientists have discovered how to stop the aging process; says so right here!  This is on the Internet, so it is also on the level.  The highlights:

• It only works on mice.  Mice?  Why are we doing this on mice?  Who cares about mice?  When was the last time that you looked at a mouse and said, “Poor thing.  It’s getting old.  We should help it!”?  Clearly, researchers have this dialogue often.
• It only works on one organ.  There are now some old mice with young livers running around.  What’s that like, I wonder?  If I was old, but had a young liver, could I chase my meds with some wine?  What if they never get this to work on more than one organ?  Which one would I pick?  The skin, I think.  It’s an organ, right?  Picking the right internal organ might help me to live longer, but it’s not how you feel, it’s how you look.  So, I downloaded one of those programs that ages a picture so you can see what you look like when you get older (who does that, anyway?), selected ‘Reverse’ from the appropriate drop down menu, and here is the result:

OK, well, hmmm . . . there it is.  Maybe I could just choose the organ in our church, or maybe a new organist.  Sorry.

• Protein is the culprit.  It says that proteins misbehave, but the article doesn’t say whether the bad proteins come from meat, fish, or plants.  That would have been helpful.  For now, I’ll just have to stick to cake, candy and ice cream until research sorts out what is what.  I wonder if it matters whether the candy looks like protein?

When I read science, I always look for something to pass along to my progeny.  It comes from my Grandmother, who was fond of pointing out how eating bananas helped all manner of organs in the body.  From this article, I note the following: “. . . if you keep your cells clean they work better.”  I will tell my children and grandchildren to keep their cells clean.