Research to Delay Aging Better Investment than Cancer or Heart Disease Studies

Is it better to invest in cancer research or how to delay aging? It turns out that we may be focusing on the wrong research--at least according to a new study. Scientists have discovered that research to delay aging and the infirmities of old age would have better population health and economic returns that advances in individual fatal diseases such as cancer and heart disease.

"In the last half-century, major life expectancy gains were driven by finding ways to reduce mortality from fatal diseases," said Dana Goldman the lead author of the new study, in a news release. "But now disabled life expectancy is rising faster that total life expectancy, leaving the number of years that one can expect to live in good health unchanged or diminished. If we can age more slowly, we can delay the onset and progression of many disabling diseases simultaneously."

In order to investigate the impact of aging research and compare it to disease research, the scientists assessed the costs and health returns on developing therapies for delayed aging. They found that lowing the incidence rate of cancer by 25 percent in the next view decades, which is in line with the most favorable historical trends, would barely improve population health over not doing anything at all. The same was true of heart disease, which is the leading cause of death worldwide.

In contrast, delaying aging would have a major impact. With major advances in cancer treatment or heart disease, a 51-year-old can expect to live about one more year. A modest improvement in delaying aging would actually double this to two additional years, and those years would be much more likely to be years spent in good health.

"Even a marginal success in slowing aging is going to have a huge impact on health and quality of life," said S. Jay Olshansky, one of the researchers, in a news release. "This is a fundamentally new approach to public health that would attack the underlying risk factors for all fatal and disabling diseases. We need to begin the research now. We don't know which mechanisms are going to work to actually delay aging, and there are probably a variety of ways this could be accomplished, but we need to decide now that this is worth pursuing."

The findings reveal a little bit more about how the focus of research could greatly impact public help. By shifting the focus of medical investment to delayed aging, there could be significant gains in physical health and social engagement. This, in turn, could result in an economic benefit overall.

The findings are published in the journal Health Affairs.