There has been a quiet, niche subculture that has found its way into the mainstream in recent years. If it were to go by one name, it would be longevity, often seen as a rapidly growing movement that has brought together the extremes of tech-driven “biohacking” with the simplicity of general lifestyle wellness. 

Often driven by what some consider to be transhumanist ideals, advocates are increasingly leaning into strict protocols, whether through restrictive diets with added health supplements or more severe experimental therapies such as constant biological monitoring, all with the goal of maximizing lifespan and/or reversing one's biological age.

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Increasingly pushed by Silicon Valley billionaires like Bryan Johnson, influential podcasters like Dr. David Sinclair or medical figures like Andrew Huberman, the “trend” presents aging as a problem to be engineered away, not the ultimate doorway from earthly life into eternal existence as the faithful consider it. 

Today, it’s not just online influencers or podcast guests advancing the discussion, but scientists in some of the world’s most prestigious schools. A new study from a team of scientists led by experts at Harvard Medical School and Tohoku University in Japan has created a “transcriptomic clock,” a tool that can accurately measure a person’s biological age based on cell function rather than the traditional marker of years since birth.

By analyzing 11,000 transcriptomes in various tissues across rats, mice, humans and macaques, researchers have been able to find which genes were turned on either due to aging or during interventions to limit or expand lifespan.

In short, the team has effectively broken through on an aging clock that serves as a potential new way to measure aging in greater detail, which could help predict disease and mortality risk, characterize treatment effects and personalize care based on biological age. 

For Catholics, the question that now arises is whether advancements that creep closer and closer to pinning down our exact point of expiration should be welcomed or cautioned — where is the line between a legitimate embrace of mortality and an unhealthy attempt to wrest control of death away from God’s providence?

For Dr. José Morais, balance is everything. The same scientific advances that offer genuine hope for healthier aging can also become worrisome when they tempt us to replace trust in God with the illusion of total human control.

“ I must say, firstly, that this is an incredible amount of work, and I have to congratulate these researchers because it is enormous what they have done,” he told The Catholic Register. “Scientists are very preoccupied now with what aging is and, if possible, if we can extend life. Over time, we are understanding these mechanisms more and more, but we don't have the final say or the final answer.” 

Morais is  a full professor of medicine at Montreal’s McGill University and a senior scientist at the research institute of McGill University Health Centre. A geriatrician by trade since 1996, he is also a practising Catholic. 

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Fascinated by today’s newest research, he first addressed the misconception that science and faith have no overlap. Explaining science’s original role as “a search to understand the order of God,” professionals ultimately become the fruit of the culture in which they live. In a secular culture that sets God aside, he warns that science can slide into scientism, a belief that treats scientific progress as the ultimate reality.

While a more secular mindset may see life extension and defeating aging entirely become near-idols due to the belief of no afterlife or higher purpose, a Catholic mindset can view the same scientific reality differently, through hope, purpose and acceptance that earthly life is finite and God has plans for us beyond it.

“ I think it comes with a belief that what God did (for creation) is good, and that there is a certain purpose that gives us some hope that shouldn't put you to search in such a way that is for control as opposed to knowledge to help others,” Morais said. “There are good scientists, they believe that they can help humanity, but there is a danger there if they don't have that perspective of a spiritual being who oversees everything.” 

The recent transcriptomic clock research sits as a key example of both of these. From the findings, and while age involves changes at the DNA level, the  study came to the conclusion there are ways of capturing the changes occurring at the RNA level that are reflected more directly in RNA transcripts. Changes from accumulated damage from metabolism, radiation, replication errors, etc, were all found to lead to declining cell function over time. 

The critical line between knowledge and control is what Morais hopes the faithful can take into account. He believes the research itself is perfectly ethical, corresponding to the natural human desire to know — it is how these magnificent scientific findings are understood, explored and furthered where ethical dilemmas are prone to arise. 

“ We can search forever, but God's knowledge surpasses by an incredible amount in superiority. You can never understand everything that He did, so you reach a point where you know enough to produce results, and then it becomes a matter of what is ethical to do with it,” he said 

He calls to mind the example of the production of nuclear power, something with enough electricity to help people throughout entire countries, but also able to be produced in such quantities as a means to destroy the world. 

“This is where we are now with biological science. We are making big strides in understanding the mechanisms that sustain life — but how humble are we to accept this as something pre-planned by God to help human beings?”  

While Morais believes humans can likely extend healthy lifespan further — possibly as high as 120 years based on epidemiological data — with a better understanding of these mechanisms and future interventions, his faith reminds him that life is finite by design.

“It’s something of an illusion to consider that we can extend (life) forever. It will never be solved. The plan of God is for humans to live in another world, one closer to His nature, which is a spiritual world and not a material world,” he said. 

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Maybe by trying, we can find a way to be even better for it. 

“ I don’t believe it is a slap in the face of God that we've been able to extend life to what it is today. On the contrary, I think that extending life pleases Him — I'm very sure of it. It is within His plans.”