JOIN USAs one gets beyond hair dyes and skin creams, ageing acquires a deeper meaning.
One thing leads to another; especially when you get on to Google. I came by the word ‘gerontology’ and searched out its meaning.
Gerontology (I learnt), a word coined by Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov in 1903, is the study of the social, psychological, cognitive and biological aspects of ageing
Now who was Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov? Google informed me that he was a Russian biologist and zoologist, best known for his pioneering research into the immune system. Mechnikov received the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1908, shared with Paul Ehrlich, for his work on phagocytosis.
Phagocytosis? What was that? I clicked on the word in blue but there were so many new concepts on the page that opened, that I gave up the chase.
Coming back to gerontology. I came by the word in an article titled ‘Eternal Life’. I wasn’t sure if the subject was spirituality or science, but either way the title held my attention. And that is a dead giveaway of my age bracket.
For, while age is a term familiar even to kids, and ‘ageing’ enters one’s vocabulary in the mid-forties, the probability of an extended life acquires significance only when you realise you have gone over the bend. That is when news on the latest ‘findings’ grab your eyeballs and there is more than a casual interest in the various anti-ageing foods, anti-ageing home remedies, and anti-ageing exercises.
For, somewhere down the road, as one gets beyond hair dyes and skin creams, ageing acquires a deeper meaning. Literally so, because you are now thinking about the internal organs and how they might be holding up! And that is when articles and scientific news on “wonder drugs in the pipeline, coming soon to the pharmacy by your house, that could reverse muscle loss, repair hearts and make the reconnection in the brain,” hold out some hope.
Browsing the net, I also got to know that experimental gerontology is the study of slowing down or reversing the process of ageing to extend life-span through tissue rejuvenation, stem cells, organ replacement etc. Well, if you can get the parts to go on working and improve the packaging, may be an extended lifespan isn’t such a scary option after all!
But the projected fate of a super bucket has shaken me up and made me do a rethink on this. I was shopping for a plastic bucket. The shopkeeper was pitching for one particular, sturdy but expensive brand. “This bucket will go on and on for so long that your family might just get bored of it and decide to throw it off a cliff!” he said.
So, care for an anti-ageing pill? Thanks. But no thanks.