Going To Great Lengths For Beauty

Women go to great lengths for beauty regimens, but at what cost? From creams made out of baby placentas, to drinking toddler blood, women will do just about anything to find their own version of a “fountain of youth.” Although celebrities might look youthful well into their 50s with the help of fillers and surgeries, I doubt any of these extreme measures really have any profound effect on everlasting youth. Tales of a mythical Fountain of Youth have been retold over thousands of years by early century writers, such as Herodotus, Alexander the Great, and Prester John. These stories were also very prominent in the Caribbean during the Age of Exploration, where 16th century Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon traveled to La Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, and Florida looking for these mystical lands. Everlasting youth was said to reside in magical waters coming from a spring, a river, a lake, or any other supernatural source of water. Although a Fountain of Youth may be a far-fetched tall tale, it is a wondrous thought to ponder and imagine. Seeing as so many people would love to maintain the vitality, buoyancy, and exuberance from their youth. The newest breakthrough in anti-aging methods is through the study of cellular senescence, the main cells that age us. Cellular senescence can be triggered by a wide variety of stress producing factors. Such as environmental and internal damaging events, oxidative stress, abnormal cellular growth, and autophagy factors. Although, it is possible through the conversion of senescent cells to an immunogenic phenotype, we will be able to eliminate the profound effects these cells have on aging us and on our immune systems. This is a great and promising horizon for the Fountain of Youth we have been searching for. Biology and neuroscience are the gateways to these breakthroughs, and are fountains of wealth themselves in their own right.