Why We Need a War on Aging
Based on presentation given at 2009 World Economic Forum in the Live Long and Prosper session, January 28, 2009 by Professor Julian Savulescu.
- There is no normal human life span, or if there is, it was very short.
Life-expectancy for the ancient Romans was circa 23 years; today the average life-expectancy in the world is circa 64 years.
For the past 150 years, best-performance life-expectancy (i.e. life-expectancy in the country where it is highest) has increased at a very steady rate of 3 months per year.
- Aging is the biggest cause of death and misery in humanity.
100 000 people die per day from age-related causes. 150 000 people die per day in total. Cardiovascular disease (strongly age-related) is emerging as the biggest cause of death in the developing world.
- Progress is possible
The goal should be to extend the HEALTHY, PRODUCTIVE lifespan, not to just keep people alive longer on respirators or in old people's homes. This is embodied in the concept not of life span but “health span”. The easiest way to do this is to prolong healthy life not attempt to compress morbidity