Aging Research Should be Far More of a Priority than is Presently the Case

For our species, aging is by far the greatest single cause of suffering and death. It is presently inevitable, affects everyone, and produces a drawn out decline of pain and disability, leading to a horrible death through progressive organ failure of one sort or another. The integrity of the mind is consumed along with the vitality of the body. Aging is the cause of death of 90% or more of the people who live in wealthier regions of the world, and the majority of those even in the poorest regions. More than 100,000 lives every day are lost to aging, and hundreds of millions more are suffering on their way to that fate. Yet very little funding goes towards medical research in general, and of that only a tiny fraction is devoted towards means to slow and reverse aging. If arriving from the outside, uninformed, one might think that this is rational on the part of funding entities, and assume that it indicates the lack of a clear path towards treatments to aging. But it is not rational. Finding ways to treat aging as a medical condition, and bring it under control to slow or reverse its consequences, is not a fishing expedition. It is not a blind hunt with slim hopes of success. On the contrary, the underlying mechanisms of aging are well cataloged and comparatively well understood. There is a clear road forward towards treatments that will greatly reduce the suffering and death that presently accompanies old age, and thus greatly extend the healthy human life span. ...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Activism, Advocacy and Education Source Type: blogs