I spend a fair amount of time building infrastructure to persuade people to do more than simply make use of the best of present day techniques to stay healthy and extend healthy life span - and I spend less time than I should actually engaged in the process of persuasion. Still, advocacy, activism and supporting the rapid advance of medical science are very important. April Smith's latest post looks at why, in the context of calorie restriction (a present day technique) and the M Prize (an effort to promote the development of better longevity medicine):
For those of us who already invest a substantial amount of our time and energy into the only known way to slow aging down, it only makes sense that we invest some amount of our money into a prize that can motivate scientists and the public at large to focus on finding a real solution, one that does not just hold off the inevitable for a few years, but that repairs the damage so that we can keep on going, just like the Energizer Bunny fresh from a battery change.
In other words, don't focus so much on present health that you fail to invest in future health; supporting medical research is the most effective way to invest in future health. We only have the one chance to do something right now - when it will make the most difference to the future of healthy life extension medicine.