Short-term and long-term possibilities for interventive gerontology.
Worldwide demographic trends, including the aging of the human population and the steadily declining fertility rate in developed nations, are creating enormous economic pressures due to the ever-increasing demand for health care services for the elderly and the ever-decreasing ability of the young to pay for these services. An attractive cost-containment strategy is accelerated research on basic molecular mechanisms of aging and rapid clinical application of the results. This approach should result in maintenance of health and productivity over a longer fraction of the lifespan and thereby to a reduction in the ratio of health care expenditures to lifelong earnings. This strategy should lead to many important improvements in the human condition. Sooner or later, our armamentarium will be supplemented by powerful and useful tools from the field of molecular engineering. With proper care, both these developments may help us to live longer, healthier, happier lives.
Fahy
G M
GM
Transplantation Laboratory, American Red Cross Biomedical Research and Development, Rockville, Maryland.
D000375:Aging / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans