Geroscientists aim to delay aging and promote healthy longevity by studying the inner goings on of what makes us age, and even what causes death. As we learn more and more about what really impacts our health and our longevity, we can take back control of our biological clocks, so-to-speak.

The American Federation for Aging Research, or AFAR, has committed itself to researching the relationship between biological aging and age-related diseases in order to “treat aging — not just age-related disease – [so] we can stay healthier longer.” They assert that geroscience is the promise of “extending years of health while compressing years of sickness.”

This is quite a revolutionary concept in Western science. Rather than only prioritizing the treatment of age-related disease – which is profitable to the pharmaceutical industry, medical industry, and so many others, the AFAR posits that we should also prioritize healthy aging itself, which in turn can then curb, prevent, postpone, or even eradicate age-related diseases. The long-term benefits include dramatically reducing overall health care costs, “perhaps more than the cure of any single disease” and simultaneously increase the quality of our lives.

To learn more about the AFAR’s positioning, goals, and values, as well as what they believe the economic impact, policy considerations, and philanthropic opportunities to be, visit their comprehensive and informative website.

By making the biology of aging as a top research priority, it is possible to delay the onset of diseases related to aging. This public health prioritization creates substantial health care savings, while multiplying the years we can all contribute to society and ultimately live longer. This, is the Longevity Dividend.

According to the study Substantial Health And Economic Returns From Delayed Aging May Warrant A New Focus for Medical Research, “the economic value of delayed aging is estimated to be $7.1 trillion over fifty years. The greater investment in research to delay aging appears to be a highly efficient way to forestall disease, extend a healthy life, and improve public health.”

Because the socioeconomic impact is so profound, naming this phenomenon is important for our collective understanding as a society. When we refer to the longevity dividend of our individual lives, we’re helping illuminate the many worthwhile benefits of healthy aging that impact us as individuals, and the ripple effect of our own longevity dividend.

Ask yourself, what value does a longer life with fewer years of sickness and more years of health have for you as an individual, and what value does that have for your family and your community? How important is that to me and to the world around me?

Now that we have established the basic building blocks of aging and the importance of prioritizing geroscience for us as individuals and as as a society, scientists and researchers are transitioning their discoveries from the labs into our lives. Supporting the field of geroscience allows us to benefit from interventions, therapies, lifestyle pillars, and other tangible opportunities to extend our lives and our healthy years.

Teams and organizations like AFAR are aiming to:

• Expand research in the areas that influence our susceptibility to disease (especially age-related diseases). This includes lifestyle, dietary and pharmaceutical practices/interventions.
• Support a shift toward research that benefits multiple age-related diseases and conditions by targeting aging itself, rather than traditional medicine’s approach of targeting one illness that can easily be replaced by another.
• Invest more in clinical trials instead of shying away from them due to assumptions that proof of concept will take too many years – researchers have debunked this claim and proven to governing bodies like the FDA that clinical trials that are short and cost-effective are possible.²
• Promote promising therapies that improve our healthspan, like NAD boosters (which restore the ubiquitous NAD compound that is proven to decrease naturally in half as we age). (Other therapies include Senolytics, Rapamycin, Humanin, Fisetin, SS-31, and more.³)

At Fluoressa, we aim to stay on top of Geroscience so you don’t have to. By providing information and therapies that are intended to improve quality of life and create healthy longevity, you can benefit too. Plus, the best gift you can give yourself and your loved ones is the gift of preserved health and a longer, healthier life, so we make it easy to share the benefits of Geroscience with others.

Sources:

1. https://www.afar.org/what-is-geroscience
2. https://www.afar.org/whats-next
3. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2703114