Predictions, Predictions

Fight Aging!

Do you want to live a longer life in good health? Simple practices can make some difference, such as exercise or calorie restriction. But over the long haul all that really matters is progress in medicine: building new classes of therapy to repair and reverse the known root causes of aging. The sooner these treatments arrive, the more lives will be saved. Find out how to help »

We all have our thoughts on - and hopes for - the timeline for healthy life extension (and radical life extension). Here are some from Stephen Gordon at the Speculist:

Last year I speculated that a simple form of life extension therapy would be available within a decade. With less than nine years left to go, I stand by this prediction.
Aging is a very complicated problem. But age therapy is coming soon because the beginning of the answer to aging will be much simpler than a more complete solution that addresses all seven of Aubrey de Grey's age problems.

As Aubrey de Grey has repeatedly pointed out, we don't have to have a complete solution to benefit. In fact, we might live to see a complete solution to the age problem if we live to see the first true therapy for aging. This "bootstrapping" idea means that the time we gain from the first age therapies might help us live to benefit from second-generation therapies, second-generation therapies bootstrap us to the third generation, etc.

I think this is overly aggressive as a timeline for widespread availability of therapies, given the problems caused by regulation and increasing socialism within medicine. I do expect to see some very impressive lab work taking place in 2014 - especially if we research advocates do our job.