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Longevity Dividend


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#1 bacopa

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Posted 11 June 2009 - 12:42 AM


http://www.sharpbrai...the-longevity-d
ividend-perhaps-gray-is-the-new-gold/

Ever heard of the Longevity Dividend? Perhaps Gray is the New Gold

By Kronos Longevity Research Institute on vitality

The Longevity Dividend is a theory that says we hope to intervene
scientifically to slow the aging process, which will also delay the
onset of age-related diseases. Delaying aging just seven years would
slash rates of conditions like cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer's disease and
heart disease in half. That's the longevity part.

The dividend comes from the social, economic, and health bonuses that
would then be available to spend on schools, energy, jobs,
infrastructure-trillions of dollars that today we spend on healthcare
services. In fact, at the rate we're going, by the year 2020 one out of
every $5 spent in this country will be spent on healthcare. Obviously,
something has to change.

Enter the Longevity Dividend. The Longevity Dividend doesn't suggest
that we live longer; instead, it calls for living better. The idea is
that if we use science to increase healthspan, not lifespan. In other
words, tomorrow's 50-year-old would have the health profile of a
43-year-old.

It might sound like science fiction, but, in fact, it's quite possible.
We're already doing it in some animal models using genetic and dietary
interventions, techniques related to what scientists call "the biology
of aging."

Getting there in humans, however, means embracing an entirely new
approach to our thinking about disease and aging, and how we conduct
scientific research into the two.

Getting Scientists' Attention

A group of eminent researchers first proposed the Longevity Dividend in
a 2006 article published in The Scientist. The authors, S. Jay
Olshansky, PhD, professor of epidemiology and biostatics at the
University of Illinois in Chicago, Daniel P. Perry, executive director
of the Alliance for Aging Research in Washington, DC, Richard A. Miller,
MD, PhD, professor of pathology at the University of Michigan in Ann
Arbor, and Robert N. Butler, MD, president and CEO of the International
Longevity Center in New York, intended their essay to be a "general
statement to scientists" about the need for a paradigm shift in the way
we think about aging and disease.

The researchers also met with U.S. senators who served on the Senate
committee that oversaw the budget for the National Institutes of Health
(NIH). "We told them we believed that a new way was available to us to
improve health in this century, but it was an approach that was
fundamentally different from the approach we had been taking," recalls
Dr. Olshansky. Instead of focusing on individual diseases, the
researchers said, significantly more funds should be shifted to research
on the biology of aging so we could unravel the underlying
pathophysiological processes that eventually result in cellular damage
and lead to age-related diseases.

The scientists were successful-to a point. The fiscal year 2008
Labor/Health and Human Services Appropriations bill did include language
acknowledging the importance of holistic research into the underpinnings
of aging itself:

"The Committee commends the (National Institute on Aging [NIA]) for work
it has done to improve understanding of the biological factors that
regulate the processes of aging. These new discoveries have led many
scientists to believe that it may become possible to postpone the onset
of a wide range of fatal and disabling diseases, in a coordinated
fashion, by retardation of the aging process. It is widely understood
that chronic illness is a powerful driver of medical costs, which in the
United States are expected to reach $16 billion annually by 2030. To
alleviate this financial burden and to develop interventions that can
extend health and longevity, the Committee urges the NIH to increase
dramatically its annual investment in the biological basis of aging."

Unfortunately, the NIA still received just 3.5 percent of the nearly $30
billion NIH budget in fiscal year 2008 (see table on below). Compare
that to the National Cancer Institute, which received 16.1 percent of
the funding, the largest slice of the pie. Yet if we spent more to
unravel the cellular secrets of aging, contended Dr. Olshansky and his
colleagues, we wouldn't need to spend so much on cancer and other
diseases of aging because fewer people would develop them.

To get this message across to clinicians as well as scientists, in July
2008 the researchers published another essay, this time in The British
Medical Journal. "A New Model of Health Promotion and Disease Prevention
for the 21st Century" contended that the effectiveness of medical
research worldwide "will become limited unless there is an increased
shift to understanding how aging affects health and vitality."

For instance, the report noted, since most people have more than one
chronic disease in the final third of their lives, curing any of the
major fatal diseases would "have only a marginal effect on life
expectancy and the overall length of healthy life."

"We are ultimately talking about the best form of prevention you can
have," said Dr. Olshansky of work to understand the biology of aging.
"And this ultimate method of prevention will carry with it significant
bonuses or dividends. People will be healthier longer so there will be
many opportunities to spend money on things other than healthcare."

National Institutes of Health Appropriations: Fiscal Year 2008

Total:
$29.46 billion
National Cancer Institute
$4.81 billion
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
$4.56 billion
National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute
$2.92 billion
National Institute of General Medical Sciences
$1.94 billion
National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases $1.86
billion
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
$1.54 billion
National Institute of Mental Health
$1.40 billion
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
$1.25 billion
National Center for Research Resources
$1.15 billion
Office of the Director
$1.11 billion
National Institute on Aging
$1.05 billion

Edited by dfowler, 11 June 2009 - 01:28 AM.


#2 brokenportal

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Posted 11 June 2009 - 01:03 AM

There is already a topic on this around here somewhere. As a rule we dont want to duplicate topics, although some especially important topics like this one I think could stand to have a few duplicates around the forums so that people are more likely to stumble across them.

#3 bacopa

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Posted 11 June 2009 - 01:08 AM

But is this exact article already been shown?

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#4 brokenportal

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Posted 11 June 2009 - 01:18 AM

Maybe not, I thought this was a link to the Longevity Dividend. Is it a link to an article about the Longevity Dividend? I cant check because the link is broken, if thats the case then never mind. Ill be interested to read it if you can get the link working.

#5 bacopa

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Posted 11 June 2009 - 01:25 AM

Well, I'll check on the link. Yeah it's just an article about the project.

#6 Lothar

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Posted 11 June 2009 - 10:21 AM

@ dfowler and brokenportal:

About four weeks ago Caliban posted a link to the report for 2008 of the Kronos Longevity Research Institute. In this report you'll find a small chapter about the Longevity Dividend with the quoted text above:

http://www.imminst.o...o...c=29975&hl=




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