Conference Matters 144

Medical doctor and speaker Kris Verburgh 'Nature can erse aging'

Babies? “At birth, babies are zero years old and not as old as the mother, who is 30, for example. That’s odd when you think about it. Her 30-year-old ovum is reprogrammed to zero years when it is ferti lised by a sperm from a 30-year-old father. This shows that nature can reverse ageing, including in humans.” How can we do that once we’re born? “For the first time in human history, we have access to technology that can treat the cause of all kinds of diseases, not only symptoms. For example, using gene therapy, epigenetic treat ments, and transcriptomic therapy. For the first time, we’re able to cure diseases that used to be a hundred percent fatal.

Kris Verburgh, 39, is a medical doctor and researcher, most famous for his bestselling book The Food Hourglass . But what many peo ple might not know is that Verburgh has been an author and speaker since the age of 17. Besides his interest in cosmology, evolution and neuroscience, his focus today is mainly on combatting ageing.

By Jildau Cuperus

Where does your fascination with ageing come from?

“Since I was young, I’ve been deeply interested in science and philosophy. And I think one of the biggest philosophical questions you can ask is, ‘Why do we have to die? Why does death exist?’”

You could say that dying is just part of nature

“There are organisms in nature that have far longer lifespans than humans. There are turtles and whales that can live for at least 200 years and Greenland sharks that can live for 400 years. Some organisms even seem to be immortal. There are polyps that can continue to regene rate, similar to, oddly enough, babies.”

'I think knowledge sharing is one of the driving forces for our species'

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