IIncreased longevity is a triumph of modern medicine and health systems. In the United Kingdom has life expectancy increased by about 25 years in a century – from 56 for men and 59 for women in 1920, to 80 and 83 in 2019 (since then it has fallen back slightly). Although this expansion is often taken for granted, increasing interest in the science of aging reveals an awareness of the challenges as well as the benefits that growing old, and living longer, can bring.
Last week, a paper in the journal Nature Aging provided evidence that people do not age steadilybut in bursts. Molecules and microbes in samples from participants showed major changes occurred in their mid-40s and early 60s. One example from the 40s was a reduced ability to metabolize alcohol—a finding that will come as no surprise to middle-aged people who drink less after finding it no longer matches them.
Headline figures hide deep disparities between the average lifespans of wealthy and socioeconomically deprived groups, which are also reflected geographically. Over the past decade, the north-south divide in longevity in England has grown. Global inequalities are even greater, with wars and violence cutting thousands of lives short, and high infant and child mortality rates reducing average life expectancy. But rising longevity is a global trend and none limited to rich Western countries.
Since most people want to live to old age, this shift is most welcome. For scientists of aging, we live through what Prof Richard Faragher call an “extremely hopeful time”. Knowledge of the biological processes of aging has increased dramatically, with new discoveries about stem cells and telomeres – which protect the ends of chromosomes and shrink over time.
But demographic change also means new human needs and pressures. Some of those related to an aging population are well known. In the United Kingdom, pressure on the social care system supporting older and disabled people is widely recognised, although recognition has not yet led to the policy shift, and democratically negotiated funding settlement, needed to ensure that everyone has access to the care they need, with risks pooled so that a unfortunate minority do not end up losing their life savings. Gaps in the current system means that older people without family members to help care for them are particularly, and sometimes painfully, exposed.
Ever since humans became aware of mortality, they have tried to cheat death and prolong life indefinitely. In a recent Guardian podcast Venki Ramakrishnanthe Nobel Prize-winning chemist, compared cryogenetics to mummification as practiced by the pharaohs. Short of defying death altogether, the holy grail of aging research, and the self-help industry that goes with it, is “compression of morbidity”—meaning a reduction in the proportion of life spent in ill health.
The jury is out on the extent to which this is possible. However, what should be encouraging to both ordinary people trying to live their best lives, and to governments whose job it is to make it easier, is that Prof Ramakrishnan and others believe the trinity of a healthy diet, regular exercise and adequate rest is “better than any anti-aging medication on the market”. Eat (but not too much); run (or find another way to stay active); sleep.
