Russian leader’s claim that people can ‘get younger’ through repeated organ transplants has raised eyebrows
Perhaps it was the extravagant display of deadly weaponry that prompted Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin to mull on mortality at this week’s military parade in Beijing.
It was more banter than serious discussion, but with both aged 72, the Chinese president and his Russian counterpart may feel the cold hand on the shoulder more than Kim Jong-un, the 41-year-old North Korean leader who strolled beside them.
Speaking through a interpreter, Xi told Putin that 70 is considered young today, prompting Putin to claim that human organs can now be repeatedly transplanted, potentially allowing people to “stave off old age indefinitely”. “This century,” Xi responded, “it might be possible to live to 150.”
It was breezy talk, but have advances in organ transplantation reached the stage where the procedures can extend the lives of healthy humans as well as save those with terminal illness?
