Scientists Have Assessed The Economic Feasibility of Various Anti-aging Measures

A new paper published in Nature has calculated the economic value of targeting aging. The paper was published by Dr. David A. Sinclair of Harvard Medical School along with two top economists based in the UK – professor Andrew J. Scott from London Business School and professor Martin Ellison from the University of Oxford. Life expectancy has increased substantially over the last 170 years, leaping from an average of 40 years in the 1850s to 72 years in 2020. While these gains are undoubtedly remarkable, they are tainted by the burden of multiple comorbidities in old age. The Global Burden of Disease (GBD) is a tool that quantifies health loss from hundreds of diseases, injuries, and other risk factors. An analysis of GBD data shows that the proportion of life in good health has remained fairly constant over time. This implies that improved life expectancy often translates to more years lived in poor health. About 72.3% of US deaths in 2016 resulted from chronic non-communicable diseases, most of which are linked to old age. Informed by this and similar datasets, researchers are looking to intensify focus on ‘healthy aging’ by answering important questions. Is it preferable to make lives healthier by compressing morbidity, or longer by extending life? How does the value of treating aging compare to eradicating specific diseases? The paper’s authors combined the biology of human healthspan and lifespan with economic simulations in order to effectively answer these queries. Using current U.S. data for calibration, the trio employed a value of statistical life (VSL) methodology that is already used by government agencies to evaluate health policies. The team started by assessing the economic value of improving ‘life extension’ vs ‘healthy life extension’. They found that people prefer to have an extra year of a healthy life extension as compared to life extension. This implies that the economic value of a healthy life extension exceeds the value of an extra year of life extension. The team also evaluated the impact of slowing aging vs reversing aging. Measures to slow down aging focus on diminishing the accumulation of biological damage. This in turn lessens the pace at which human health and lifespan deteriorate with age. In an extreme situation where aging is eliminated, health and mortality would become independent of age and the individual would be ‘forever young’. Techniques to slow down aging range from simple lifestyle adjustments to complex scientific methods such as cellular reprogramming. Aging reversal – an alternative to slowing down aging – focuses on repairing accumulated biological damage. A hypothetical example would be the Marvel Character Wolverine and his daughter X-23, both of whom possess a healing ability that allows regeneration of body tissue. Recent studies have demonstrated that tissue regeneration is possible in mice and humans. The authors assumed that slowing down aging would take place over the entire adult life while reversing aging would commence at the age of 65. They then established that the economic value of slowing down aging was greater than reversing aging at younger ages. However, the economic value of aging reversal rose faster with age, which can be explained by the fact that reversal of aging leads to improvements in health at older ages. Another key question on the team’s radar was how treating aging compares to eradicating specific diseases. To answer this question, the trio referenced metformin, an FDA-approved drug prescribed for type 2 diabetes that is also believed to produce ‘protective effects against several age-related diseases’. A study published in the Journal of Diabetes Complications in 2017 and involving more than 41,000 diabetic men aged around 75 demonstrated how metformin affected the incidence of various age-related diseases. The team estimated that the benefits of using metformin to address the aging process often matched or exceeded the benefits of complete eradication of specific diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular ailment, or dementia. A concerted team of scientists is now conducting a larger Targeting Aging with Metformin (TAME) trial to learn more on the efficacy of this ‘wonder drug’ in alleviating the diseases of aging. Another goal of the study was to assess how the economic value of slowing down aging changed over time. Using 2017 census data, the paper showed that a slowdown in aging that increases life expectancy by 1 year is worth US$38 trillion. A slowdown that increased life expectancy by 10 years is worth US$367 trillion. This leads to the conclusion that the more progress is made to improve how humans age, the greater the value of further improvements. This paper clearly demonstrated that healthy life extension is more beneficial than mere increases in life expectancy. It also proved that targeting aging as a process offers larger economic gains compared to eradicating individual diseases. These valuable insights will likely inform ongoing and future advances in the fields of longevity and gerontology.