Fight Aging!

The primary economic argument presently made for treating aging as a medical condition emerges from the fact that medical spending and medical research is largely entwined with government in much of the world; it is increasingly a public purse, not a collection of private purses. Politicians and bureaucrats care (to some degree) about avoiding the looming financial implosion that will result when present unsustainable spending policies run head-on into the demographic transition to a society in which an ever-larger proportion of people are old, suffering from age-related disease, and many of their expenses paid via entitlement programs. Reducing the burden of old age reduces the costs to public health programs. Sadly, this seems to be a lot more motivating to many people than the goal of reducing the incidence of human suffering and death.

There is a much larger and more important economic argument to be made regarding the costs of age-related death and disease, not just the expenses, but the lost opportunities, the lost progress and knowledge. This cost dwarfs the expenditures of the world's government health services; recent estimates suggested that merely delaying aging by a single year would save $38 trillion per year, just by marginally reducing the present enormous costs of coping with the universal progression to dysfunction and death in later life. Yet this economic argument is met with shrugs, and is much less motivating to those who find themselves in the position to create change for the better, or so it seems. We are not a rational species.

Translational longevity medicine: a Swiss perspective in an ageing country

Breakthroughs in medical research in the last century have led to a significant extension of the human lifespan, resulting in a shift towards an elderly population worldwide. Due to the ongoing progress of global development towards elevated standards of living, this study specifically examines Switzerland as a representative nation to explore the socioeconomic and healthcare ramifications associated with an ageing population, thereby highlighting the tangible impact experienced in this context. Life expectancy in Switzerland has steadily increased over the past few decades. Along with life expectancy, the old age dependency ratio (OADR) has also increased. As ageing is associated with many morbidities, their prevalence is destined to further increase unless further measures are taken. The increased OADR will lead to secular stagnation in the economy and threaten the sustainability of pension systems.

The demographic transition and ageing population, therefore, pose important challenges to Swiss society from several perspectives. Given our findings here, we suggest the following potential strategies to address these challenges. A paradigm shift in medical practice is needed to improve health rather than respond to existing diseases. By researching the molecular mechanisms involved in the biology of ageing and expanding epidemiological and clinical research on ageing, we should aim to bridge the gaps between basic research of geroscience and medical applications. We need to establish protocols for clinical trials on ageing that include functional capacity, frailty, and time to events of onset of age-related diseases. For this, we need to establish clinically relevant biomarkers of healthy ageing and incorporate a more complete interconnected picture of comorbidities. With this, we can hopefully improve the quality of health in the ageing population.

Without changes in the biological and medical fields, the socioeconomic impacts of ageing might become devastating. Hence it is indispensable to invest in the future of ageing research.