Years without tears

Saturnino de la Fuente Garcia's birthday was going to be a great event. He had seen more of life than almost anybody on the planet. He was alive when the first aeroplane flew across the English Channel. He lived through World War One and the Spanish Flu.  

But the celebrations did not happen. Garcia died on Tuesday, three weeks before his 113th birthday. 

Garcia was the world's oldest man. And he had advice about how to survive for a long time. "Have a quiet life", he said, "And do not hurt anyone." 

He might also have had his height to thank. Garcia was only 5ft. If he had been taller, he would probably have been made to fight in the Spanish Civil War.

Instead, Garcia ended up making army boots. He went on to build a successful shoemaking business. 

Record-breaking ages could soon become more common. In his new book Lifespan: Why We Age - And Why We Don't Have To, David Sinclair argues that ageing is a process that can be stopped. The answer, he says, is to help the body produce the proteins that repair cells. 

The proteins are called sirtuins - and Sinclair has several tricks for producing more of them. One is to reduce food. Experiments with lemurs showed that eating much less lived 50% longer - though they were not happy. Another way to produce sirtuins is to take a pill with a chemical called nicotinamide riboside. 

Sinclair also suggests genetic engineering could be key. This has been a success with mice, who have lived up to 40% longer than normal. 

But many biologists are worried that trying to stop ageing could do more harm than good. One expert warns that genetic engineering could cause "every kind of cancer at once".

As for starving yourself, no studies have been running long enough to confirm whether it works. And some believe that if sirtuins really were the answer to ageing, our bodies would have found a way of producing more of them naturally.

Should we stop ageing?

Yes: Nothing causes humans more misery than old age. If we could defeat it, most of our loved ones would remain with us forever. A younger population would be better able to solve the world's problems.

No: Ageing is a natural process, and tampering with nature is always a recipe for disaster. The most important thing we can do to save the planet is to reduce its population rather than increase it. 

Or... Instead of trying to make old people live longer, we should focus on giving them a better quality of life. There is no point in surviving to 112 if you end up feeling sick and miserable.