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As the year winds to a close, folk start to think about where to direct year-end charitable donations. Just prior to embarking upon this post, I finished sealing up a check to the Methuselah Foundation, my favored 501(c)(3) all-volunteer nonprofit dedicated to advancing real, meaningful anti-aging research.
By "real, meaningful anti-aging research" I mean the science of identifying and repairing the classes of molecular damage that accumulate with age, distorting and destroying the finely balanced workings of our body. I do not mean slowing aging through tinkering with the workings of our metabolism, and nor do I mean the futile and expensive effort of patching up the end results as best we can. It is an accumulation of damage - detrimental changes at the cellular and biochemical level - which lies at the root of age-related conditions; our body is a complex machine, and like other machines it fails when it becomes worn and clogged. Learning how to repair that damage will mean halting and reversing aging - scientific rejuvenation, in other words. Striking at the root is the best way to obtain results in any field, and here it offers the chance of results within our lifetime.
Given that the vast majority of all medical research goes towards ineffectively patching up the final failure of age-damaged bodies, and almost all longevity research is focused upon slowing aging through metabolic manipulation, there is a great need for organizations like the Methuselah Foundation. More effective roads forward must be encouraged and championed if we are to live the much longer, healthier lives promised by medical science.
You may have read about the work of the Foundation in the media in the past few years, including:
All of this has been funded by the generosity of donors, largely folk just like you and I, who have stepped forward to help make a future they would like to live in. Go ahead and read the statements of the donors.
How much more could we all achieve if we weren't slowly cut down and killed by our increasingly damaged, malfunctioning biochemistry? I hope you'll give some thought to supporting work in improving healthy human longevity, helping to bring about a world in which the 100,000 people who will die today from the results of aging can instead live on in health and vigor.
Technorati tags: activism, advocacy, life extension
Posted by Reason at November 1, 2006 8:37 PM
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