While the results of any individual survey on attitudes to healthy life extension should be probably be taken with an appropriate amount of salt, trends over time in many surveys are interesting to watch. The Methuselah Foundation folk pointed me to a recent British survey:

Many Britons would give up favourite things, including sex, to reach 100 years of age, a poll suggests. Some 40% said they would give up sex - half of women and a third of men - 39% food and drinks and 42% travel.

But the Bupa survey of 1,003 people found 94% would not give up the company of family and friends and three quarters would not sacrifice money.

People cited being there for family and seeing grandchildren grow up as the main reasons for wanting to reach 100.

The poll, carried out by Mori for Bupa, also revealed half thought scientists should continue to keep trying to prolong people's lifespans, while 45% thought it was everyone's duty to live as long as possible.

But what if you didn't have to give up anything except money? That is the reality of matters today: we stand within sight of ways to greatly extend the healthy human life span, to live longer in vigor and youth, but the resources to get there are not yet dedicated to the task.

Today - and this is a large and important change from a decade ago - there are easy ways for ordinary folk to band together and devote individually modest amounts to help forge the future of longevity research. The Methuselah Foundation provides one such way: donating to the MPrize research prize or funding SENS research.

The future is what you make of it, both as an individual and in collaboration with others. Just as we prepare for retirement by looking ahead for decades and saving now, we can also help to make our later lives far longer, healthier and more youthful. The process is the same: we invest money now to make our future better, and the sooner you invest, the larger the eventual benefit. Scientists stand waiting for our support and encouragement - when we all step up to give material support to healthy life extension research, progress towards longer, healthier lives will greatly accelerate.

Technorati tags: life extension, survey

Posted by Reason at September 23, 2006 2:13 PM | TrackBack (0)