The main question as I see: is current spending of 1 billion-a-year on aging enough to delay aging for 10 years? Aging is a problem of (hyper)exponentially increasing complexity with time. There are probably a few interventions which could give 1-3 years of expected life extension (and aging delay): metformin, vitamin D and green tea, and proper testing of them could cost as few as tens millions of dollars as in proposed TAME study of metformin. This (+chance to survive for other life extending technologies) means much higher cost-effectiveness of such small experiments, as I described in the post. There are several other ways to donate more cost-effectively than directly funding aging research, like lobbying WHO that aging is a disease.
On the other hand, as aging is so quickly grows in time, adding up with small interventions will not give us 10 years delay of aging. So when we speak about 10 years aging delay, costs become much higher, as there is no more low-hanging fruits.
I read an opinion that current aging research may benefit of 10 times increase in spending. But it is still not clear, how much should be spent in this mode to find “a cure for aging”. I guestimate that at least a trillion dollars for 10 ten years delay of aging - above the level which we could get via simple (but undertested) interventions, which is 3-5 years.
Now, spending a trillion dollars will give 10 billion people 10 years QALY each, which is only 10 dollars for QALY (assuming that we should not count the price of therapy, as people will pay themselves, and they only need an opportunity for life extension, but not constrained in health spendings).
I believe there are larger effect sizes out there than metformin; metformin has a relatively small effect size on mice compared to other lifespan-modifying interventions, and the TAME trial chose metformin (as Barzilai admits) because it’s extremely safe and well-studied, not because it’s expected to be the best.
I agree with you; I don’t think aging research would be cost-effective at a trillion dollars of total funding. I expect that’s hugely more money than necessary.
Surely, there are lager effect sizes there, but they need much more testing to prove the safety and such testing is the most expensive part of any trials. There is a few already safe intervention which could help to extend life, that is, besides metformin, green tee and vitamin D.
Even as a trillion dollar project, fighting aging could be still cost-effective, after we divide the benefit for 10 billion people.
If we speaking on de novo therapies, current price of just one drug development is close to 10 billions, and comprehensive aging therapy like SENS should include many new interventions, so it may be reasonable to estimate that it will be equal to 100 new interventions, and thus trillion dollar price is real. The sum is large but affordable for humanity as whole: total space funding for all history is around this price.
However, it is impossible to get such trillion dollar funding via donations. But EA efforts could be used to attract larger funders, like pension funds, farma, governments, billionaires and insurance companies for funding such projects as they will eventually benefit from the cure for aging.
The main question as I see: is current spending of 1 billion-a-year on aging enough to delay aging for 10 years? Aging is a problem of (hyper)exponentially increasing complexity with time. There are probably a few interventions which could give 1-3 years of expected life extension (and aging delay): metformin, vitamin D and green tea, and proper testing of them could cost as few as tens millions of dollars as in proposed TAME study of metformin. This (+chance to survive for other life extending technologies) means much higher cost-effectiveness of such small experiments, as I described in the post. There are several other ways to donate more cost-effectively than directly funding aging research, like lobbying WHO that aging is a disease.
On the other hand, as aging is so quickly grows in time, adding up with small interventions will not give us 10 years delay of aging. So when we speak about 10 years aging delay, costs become much higher, as there is no more low-hanging fruits.
I read an opinion that current aging research may benefit of 10 times increase in spending. But it is still not clear, how much should be spent in this mode to find “a cure for aging”. I guestimate that at least a trillion dollars for 10 ten years delay of aging - above the level which we could get via simple (but undertested) interventions, which is 3-5 years.
Now, spending a trillion dollars will give 10 billion people 10 years QALY each, which is only 10 dollars for QALY (assuming that we should not count the price of therapy, as people will pay themselves, and they only need an opportunity for life extension, but not constrained in health spendings).
I believe there are larger effect sizes out there than metformin; metformin has a relatively small effect size on mice compared to other lifespan-modifying interventions, and the TAME trial chose metformin (as Barzilai admits) because it’s extremely safe and well-studied, not because it’s expected to be the best.
I agree with you; I don’t think aging research would be cost-effective at a trillion dollars of total funding. I expect that’s hugely more money than necessary.
Surely, there are lager effect sizes there, but they need much more testing to prove the safety and such testing is the most expensive part of any trials. There is a few already safe intervention which could help to extend life, that is, besides metformin, green tee and vitamin D.
Even as a trillion dollar project, fighting aging could be still cost-effective, after we divide the benefit for 10 billion people.
If we speaking on de novo therapies, current price of just one drug development is close to 10 billions, and comprehensive aging therapy like SENS should include many new interventions, so it may be reasonable to estimate that it will be equal to 100 new interventions, and thus trillion dollar price is real. The sum is large but affordable for humanity as whole: total space funding for all history is around this price.
However, it is impossible to get such trillion dollar funding via donations. But EA efforts could be used to attract larger funders, like pension funds, farma, governments, billionaires and insurance companies for funding such projects as they will eventually benefit from the cure for aging.