A nice post from Chris Patil at Ouroboros; good explanations by an aging researcher are not so far removed from good advocacy for longevity research:

Over the weekend I had a novel experience: my first presentation about the biology of aging to an audience consisting entirely of non-scientists. ... Rather than drill down into technical details, I decided to use my five minutes to motivate the problem: Why should people care about biogerontology?

...

Surprisingly, comprehensive cures for all heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer are predicted to have rather modest effects on average lifespan (e.g., see Olshansky et al.). Such cures, in any event, are still far away even after years of study. Aging is the primary risk factor for these (and many other) diseases; as a relatively new science, biogerontology holds greater promise for near-term radical improvements in healthspan. The Olshansky projections really blew them away, especially when coupled with a few words about the longevity increases we’ve achieved with single-gene changes and dietary restriction in model organisms. Then I showed a pie chart comparing the NIH funds spent on diseases to those spent on basic aging research. Gasps.

There is very little research into aging versus diseases of aging. There's more; read the rest. Patil and I are somewhat distant on the eternal debate of government funding versus not, but no surprise there. I'd cheerfully see an end to the distortions placed upon medical research by government funding and regulation. For example, aging is not considered a disease, and therefore no treatment will ever be approved by regulators. Wonder why all the research investment goes to the diseases of aging instead? There's your reason. It is a great evil, a great net loss to our future:

At the moment, right this instant, the system is broken. The very fact that we have "a system" is a breakage; that entrepreneurs are held back from investment by rules and political whims that are now held to be of greater importance than any number of lives. That decisions about your health and ability to obtain medicine are made in a centralized manner, by people with neither the incentives nor the ability to do well.

As is always the case, the greatest cost of socialism in medicine lies in what we do not see. It lies in the many billions of dollars presently not invested in medical research and development, or invested wastefully, because regulations - and the people behind them, supporting and manipulating a political system for their own short term gain - make it unprofitable to invest well. Investment is the fuel of progress, and it is driven away by self-interested political cartels.

Waste, of time and resources, is inevitable and endemic in any venture undertaken by government - and time is something we have little of. We should all care greatly about biogerontology, because, if nurtured and supported, this science and research community holds the promise of many more years of healthy life for all. Equally, we should all care about the government rules, regulators and enforcers that are killing that promise dead, year after year after year.

Posted by Reason at January 7, 2008 9:21 PM | TrackBack (0)