Are we making progress in life extension? Will it be in my lifetime?
Here's a signal that we're making real progress in life extension: when we have interventions that allow mice, rats, dogs and monkeys to live much longer and healthier than they currently do.
We're not there yet.
We've seen some incremental evidence of life extension in mice. Still, we can't get a mouse to live reliably to 5 years old and beyond. We can't get a rat to live much beyond 6 or 7, though maybe Harold Katcher's blood factors will change that?
Mice and rats are interesting, especially given the naked mole rat. Naked mole rats can live for 30+ years. They age much more slowly. They have better DNA repair. They get less cancer. They're similar to rats and mice (though more similar to guinea pigs, which live 5-7 years).
One interesting research path would be to make mice and rats (or guinea pigs) more like naked mole rats. Maybe gene editing or drugs to stimulate the same DNA repair pathways?
We also haven't seen much life extension yet in dogs and monkeys. The Dog Aging Project may change this soon. This study is giving rapamycin to older companion dogs.
Epigenetic reprogramming is promising and high-visibility. We'll know it's especially promising when we see mice, rats, dogs and monkeys living longer and healthier because of it. Same with the factors in young blood.
Put another way, if we can't reliably increase lifespan and healthspan in mice, rats, dog and monkeys, we probably not that close to achieving it in humans.