The Challenge of Achieving Healthy Human Longevity

The big sea change of the past 10 to 15 years in aging research is that the scientific community is now near entirely behind the idea that aging is a viable target for therapy, and that we should be working towards greater healthy human longevity. Prior to this time, aging was near entirely a "look but don't touch" field, in which any talk of medical intervention in aging was strongly discouraged. Making this change come about was a battle of years of patient advocacy (such as by the SENS Research Foundation and Methuselah Foundation), argument, and incremental advances in the science funded by small sums of hard-to-find research funding. It is perhaps hard for people today to recall how opposed the culture was to the idea of extending healthy life spans. The present challenge is different: to ensure that the now willing workers and funding institutions direct their attention towards projects that will make a meaningful difference. Near all present work on intervention in the aging process is intended to do no more than modestly slow aging, tinkering with metabolism to slightly slow the accumulation of cell and tissue damage, or slightly blunt the consequences of damage. But the research community can do far better than this; it is possible to repair the damage that causes aging in order to produce rejuvenation. That strategy should be the primary focus on the research and development community, and it is not. The initiative mentioned here, the Health Longevity ...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Healthy Life Extension Community Source Type: blogs