Characters in the star trek future live a lot longer than people live today. For example, Jonathan Archer is still working at age 140 in the 2250s when Star Trek 2009 was set.
How is the increase in life span explained in the Star Trek universe?
Note that simply eliminating Cancer, heart disease, diabetes, etc would not cause such long lives. .. People age because the tips of the DNA molecules (called telomeres) in every cell in the body get "trimmed" (for lack of a better word) every time cells replicate. All the cells in the human body get replaced every 7 years, and some cells get replaced every few days. So the continual replacement of cells at first destroys the telemeres and then continually destroys the genetic information at the ends of the DNA molecules until the cells can no longer make viable copies of themselves so that the person ages and dies.
Oxidative stress from inhaling common alternative isotopes of oxygen also contributes to aging and death so that simply breathing causes eventual death.
Factors like telomere degradation and oxidative stress would cause people to die even if every current disease was prevented.
Star Trek hired lots of scientific consultants to make their explanations plausible. What scientific explanations were given for overcoming the non-disease causes of short life span, like telomere degradation and oxidative stress?
I am hoping that this will get answered by someone who knows something about science so that the answer can do justice to the consulting fees that Star Trek no doubt paid to biologists to develop their explanations.
How would the Voyager EMH, Dr. Flox, Dr. Crusher, or the Star Trek 2009 Leonard McCoy explain this to a Star Fleet medical conference?