Predicting the Near Future of Longevity Drugs
From Fortune, a short look at the near future of calorie restriction mimetic and related drugs - how far can longevity be taken by the manipulation of metabolism at its critical points? "Many experts believe that drugs are on the horizon which could extend average life span by perhaps five to ten years. That may seem unimpressive. But their boost to life expectancy would 'far exceed' that from totally eliminating cancer, says S. Jay Olshansky ... That's because the risk of many deadly diseases skyrockets as we age, so even if one were vanquished, the others would soon get us, limiting the gain in average life span. In contrast, an anti-aging drug, almost by definition, would retard all major diseases of aging at once. ... In 2005 the Rand Corp. consulted medical experts on this question and reported that they believe there's a 50 percent chance that anti-aging drugs will be available within 20 years. Some researchers on aging, such as Harvard's David Sinclair, believe that medicines like those will come along much sooner - perhaps within a decade." This is, however, the slow path for any greater extension of healthy life span. We can do much better, given a change in focus and greater funding for repair over metabolic manipulation.
Link: http://money.cnn.com/2007/01/30/magazines/fortune/anti-aging_drugs.fortune/