New treatment could see humans start to live to 150 within the next decade

A treatment that enables human beings to live to the age of 150 could be available within the next five to 10 years, one of the world’s most eminent plastic surgeons has claimed.

Dr Steven Cohen, who specialises in complex aesthetic facial and regenerative surgery, believes the results of studies and advances in the medical sphere could soon pave the way to extend our lives.

However, unsurprisingly, undergoing such a treatment will cost hundreds of thousands of pounds.

“The ability to reverse or prolong or delay ageing is sounds like science fiction – but it is just around the corner now and will soon be available,” Dr Cohen told JamPrime.com.

“We’ve been hampered a little by the belief that one must die sometime, and that you can’t live forever.

“But in reality, there are animals that do live for hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of years.

“For instance, certain jellyfish live 1,000s of years and certain turtles live well into their 200’s.

“So, once we begin to understand these mechanisms, we can begin to look at how we might devise treatments that work in the same way.”

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Dr Cohen says scientists at the company he co-founded, Mage Biotechnologies, are working on such mechanisms now.

He added: “In the future, humans could be living for a very long, extended period of time."

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Facial ageing begins after birth and culminates in a mature soft tissue and bone framework by the age of 22, so this is the optimal point to start regeneration.

At that point, as we begin to age, it is seen in the skin, fat and even bone.

Ageing can be accelerated by sun damage, poor diet, diseases, and genetics.

The main treatments currently are for sun damage, loss of facial volume, which is composed of deep and superficial fat compartments and bone, and lastly, laxity.

Dr Cohen explains his new work is based on an experiment on mice published in Nature magazine.

In this experiment, scientists joined the circulation systems of an older and younger mouse and then, after a short period of time, they sacrificed the mice and found that all of the older mice’s organs including their brains, hearts, kidneys and liver became younger.

Dr Cohen said: “The reason is related to the youthful exosomes of the younger mouse, transferring their packages of proteins to the older mouse’s cells, thereby repairing them, and making them more youthful.

“The strategy is to do these kinds of treatments along the way, when we’re younger, and have more healthy stem cells which can release younger exosomes into our tissues to restrain the ageing process.”

He is confident biological advancements in delaying, halting or even reversing cellular ageing mean he’ll be able to offer some of these newer ‘longevity’ and ‘regenerative’ services at the London Regenerative Institute at the Corinthia Hotel within the next year.

While most aesthetic treatments like plastic surgery and aesthetic procedures simply ‘mask’ the inevitable signs of ageing, he is already using technology to reduce the age of cells.

These regenerative techniques are currently being used by Dr Cohen in combination with complex, extended deep-plane facelifting surgery and deep neck surgeries.

The key, he said, is to have an unlimited set of tools, both surgical and regenerative and to address the actual anatomical and physiological changes that occur with ageing.

Dr Cohen, a co-founder of the London Regenerative Institute along with doctors Tunc Tiryaki and Bryan Mayou, is partnering with the Cadogan Clinic in Chelsea, where the surgery will be performed.

Patients will recover and receive post-operative care at one of the leading hotels in the world, the Corinthia, where Dr Cohen says they will receive “unparalleled care”.

Post-operation patients will receive 24-hour nursing, integrative medical consultations, post-procedural intravenous supplements to accelerate healing and many other proven regenerative approaches to ensure a safe and rapid recovery along with an in-depth understanding of their biological age and how to extend their healthy years.

Specialists working across a broad spectrum will include plastic surgeons, sports medicine, orthopaedic doctors, gynaecologists, gastroenterologists and others.

Dr Cohen also suggests particular organs, parts of our bodies that suffer, for example, long-term repetitive injuries over time, like a pianist’s wrists or an athlete’s knee, will be repaired using these newer regenerative approaches.

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He said: “Along with our ability to monitor our biological age through specially-designed epigenetic tests and Artificial Intelligence, we can then provide complimentary, personalised supplements, exercise regimens, diets, etc. to prolong, delay and even reverse age-related deterioration.

“It’ll be very bespoke and personalised.

“Imagine a day will come when from genetic testing, we will understand how we will age from the moment we are born, we will know what diseases we are most likely to contract and how we will age.

“Now, if we apply specific modifications using our own cells and other treatments that address the root causes, we will have the opportunity to control our destiny.

“Why not put a child on Lipitor if all the men in his family have died of heart attacks in their early 30s?

“Why not replace the parts we are losing such as fat in our faces as we age, with similar parts and similar cells and in essence, start all over or delay facial ageing.”

One of the latest advances at the London Regenerative Institute, through one of the leading scientific think tanks in the world, will be the introduction of exosomes.

Exosomes are small bubbles or vesicles made from our cell’s outer wall or membrane and brought into the cell where they collect proteins such as messenger RNA.

Then these small bubbles are released back into the circulation to repair other cells, reduce inflammation, and reverse ageing.

Dr Cohen said: “The human body has exosomes that repair injured tissue and are released from our stem cells.

“As my partner, Dr. Tunc Tiryaki says, ‘Imagine a stem cell is the aircraft carrier.’

“So, the exosome is the jet plane that takes off, delivering a packet of some type to the target.

“Basically, when there’s a need from an injured cell, ageing or dying cell, they send a signal out, and stem cells in response create an endosome from their cell wall, which collects the necessary material from the healthy cell to reduce inflammation, improve blood flow and repair.

“Then, the endosome is sent as an exosome back into the circulation with these supplies to aid the injured and dying cell.”

The surgeon added that when fillers are used to replace volume, there is very little impact on how our cells and tissue age. In essence they camouflage the ageing process.

This is not done by simple fat grafting but rather by selecting out stem cells and regenerative cells from our fat using devices that Dr Cohen and Dr Tunc Tiryaki have invented.

He said: “By using newer regenerative approaches, such as injectable tissue replacement. and regeneration with cells from your own fat, which is a unique way of fat grafting, we not only look better and younger, but our tissues and cells actually become more youthful.

“We prolong, delay, and in some cases, even reverse the ageing process.”

Dr Cohen is listed by Newsweek, Castle Connolly and US News and World Report as one of the best facelift surgeons in the United States.

His background is also steeped in medical and scientific training having gone through both general surgery training at Columbia Presbyterian and Dartmouth, as well as cardiac surgery at the National Institutes of Health, plastic surgery at the University of Pennsylvania and craniofacial and facial plastic surgery at UCLA, some of the top programs in America.

He is an inventor, author of hundreds of medical papers, three textbooks and is known worldwide as a pioneer in stem cell facelifts and regenerative medicine.

In addition, he is an artist whose works have been collected and shown since 1984.

Surgical nurse Michele, 44, underwent surgery performed by Dr Cohen at his San Diego clinic in 2017.

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The mum-of-one began to notice she was losing volume and elasticity in the skin on her face.

Dr Cohen took fat from her abdomen, cleansed it and then using devices he developed, separated it into a structural graft to replace lost fat and volume and a regenerative component full of stem and regenerative cells to stimulate new blood vessels and reverse age-related changes in elastin and collagen fibres.

Then, much like a filler, the fat is gently injected back into the appropriate areas on her face with a cannula.

Michele, who works at the clinic, is delighted with results – and now feels she will be “staying at the age of 40”.

She says that as a result of her treatment, if you look at 15 years of ageing, other than a little bit of filler in her lips, she looks the same now as she did.

Michele added: “I wanted to do an anti-ageing type of treatment that would not just give me immediate results but results over time.

“I know there’s filler options, but I wanted something that was going to be a little longer lasting.

“So, I decided that I would do the fat grafting, and of course I’ve seen the results on other patients, so I was really happy with that process, and I’m happy with how I look now.”Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.