Articulating the Case for the Longevity Dividend

Abstract

In the past century, the average duration of life of people living in developed countries rose by 30 years. Most of this gain was a result of advances in public health that saved the young by warding off communicable diseases. However, in the latter half of the 20th century, improvements in lifestyle modification and advances in biomedical technology enabled people at middle and older ages to experience extended lives. Thus, aging as we know it today is a new phenomenon—experienced by a small but rapidly growing segment of our world. As appealing as our longer lives may be, there was a price to pay for life extension—the rise of noncommunicable fatal and disabling diseases. It was a fair exchange, but now humanity is left with the difficult task of dealing with this Faustian trade. A new approach to public health in a rapidly aging world has been proposed (the longevity dividend), with the idea that extending healthy life by slowing aging may prove to be the most efficient way to combat the fatal and disabling diseases that plague us today. Here, I articulate the case for why we now need to turn our attention to combating aging itself.