A fairly sweeping set of data compiled by the Milken Institute (also the force behind the interesting but probably irrelevant FasterCures initiative) caught my eye today. It catalogues the cost of chronic disease, but in doing so it is really establishing the cost of aging.

In its groundbreaking study, "An Unhealthy America: The Economic Impact of Chronic Disease," the Milken Institute details the enormous financial impact of chronic disease on the U.S. economy - not only in treatment costs, but lost worker productivity - today and in the decades ahead. It also describes the huge savings if a serious effort were made to improve Americans’ health.

Take a look a look at the major categories of chronic disease examined in the report website - almost all are age-related conditions. The greatest correlation for suffering chronic disease and associated costs is with age, with the toll of cellular and biochemical damage established across a lifetime of metabolic activity.

But aging is always the elephant in the room when you're looking at the work of those close to the regulators. Obvious, behind all the facts and figures, and absolutely unmentioned. That has to change if progress is to be made.

That said, the report provides another reminder than no plausible level of well-organized and effective investment in longevity research could be too high. The costs of aging are staggering, dwarfing any hard fought socioeconomic cause of today you care to name. Yet we struggle to make it a topic for discussion - and that also must change if progress is to be made.

Posted by Reason at October 4, 2007 10:38 PM | TrackBack (0)