Anti-aging medication or technology (if it worked) would generate returns not just to the people who engage in the research, but to many others.
I’m not seeing what those returns are other than (i) preventing death, and (ii) improving quality-of-life (which also happens in other medical research). It seems like the value-added is (i), which is why I made my original statement.
I don’t see how it’s qualitatively different from trying to prevent or cure malaria, AIDS, or NTDs. (Quantitative differences arise mostly from cost-effectiveness and feasibility).
So, in a way, curing malaria is anti-aging research. If you extend anti-aging research to any research to prevent illnesses with high mortality, then sure. But why give it a new name then? Is it just a broader term than “disease prevention”?
Anti-aging focuses specifically on extending the “healthspan” of people (starting in the developed world, presumably) past the current point where age-related degenerative diseases start to eat into your QALYs.
It’s different from disease prevention because it operates higher than at the level of individual diseases, hoping to solve the underlying reasons why age is so strongly contributory to those diseases.
Anti-aging also tends to have absurdly high RFMF compared to most disease research, since it’s a “weird” idea that most people don’t like.
It also seems high impact: it would serve as a multiplier for any earlier-in-life health improvements as well as allowing some high-skill people to keep contributing to society (e.g., researchers who have accumulated lots of valuable knowledge and experience).
General anti-aging research is arguably more effective than trying to cure any single disease, because once your body begins to decline due to advanced age, that makes you more susceptible to basically all diseases and injuries. Successful anti-aging treatments would thus act as a general, massive health boost to everyone past a certain age.
When I speak of effectiveness, I generally mean, “For X amount of effort, how much good would this path lead to?” I agree that successfully giving a general, massive health boost would probably be better than curing a single disease, but I worry that the broader approach has less impact-per-effort.
I’m not seeing what those returns are other than (i) preventing death, and (ii) improving quality-of-life (which also happens in other medical research). It seems like the value-added is (i), which is why I made my original statement.
So, in a way, curing malaria is anti-aging research. If you extend anti-aging research to any research to prevent illnesses with high mortality, then sure. But why give it a new name then? Is it just a broader term than “disease prevention”?
Anti-aging focuses specifically on extending the “healthspan” of people (starting in the developed world, presumably) past the current point where age-related degenerative diseases start to eat into your QALYs.
It’s different from disease prevention because it operates higher than at the level of individual diseases, hoping to solve the underlying reasons why age is so strongly contributory to those diseases.
Anti-aging also tends to have absurdly high RFMF compared to most disease research, since it’s a “weird” idea that most people don’t like.
It also seems high impact: it would serve as a multiplier for any earlier-in-life health improvements as well as allowing some high-skill people to keep contributing to society (e.g., researchers who have accumulated lots of valuable knowledge and experience).
General anti-aging research is arguably more effective than trying to cure any single disease, because once your body begins to decline due to advanced age, that makes you more susceptible to basically all diseases and injuries. Successful anti-aging treatments would thus act as a general, massive health boost to everyone past a certain age.
When I speak of effectiveness, I generally mean, “For X amount of effort, how much good would this path lead to?” I agree that successfully giving a general, massive health boost would probably be better than curing a single disease, but I worry that the broader approach has less impact-per-effort.