Ask the doctor
Q. I’m 70, and my memory isn’t what it used to be. I’ve been seeing news about procedures to improve memory, like injecting young blood or stimulating the brain with electrical currents. Is any of this true?
A. Believe it or not, it could be. But don’t hold your breath waiting for this research to produce a treatment that helps you and me. What you see in the news is part of a growing body of research on slowing aging. We’ve talked about this before (see “Can we slow the aging process?” in the May 2021 Health Letter). We used to assume that aging, like death, was inevitable. But increasing evidence indicates that it may become possible someday to slow, if not eliminate, the aging process.