I had an interesting discussion with non-science friends last week about ageing research. So, why study ageing? I shall get back on this … in the meantime, let us revisit the original position paper on human aging in 2002 by S. Jay Olshansky, Leonard Hayflick, and Bruce Carnes. Below is the introduction:

“In the past century, a combination of successful public health campaigns, changes in living environments, and advances in medicine have led to a dramatic increase in human life expectancy. Long lives experienced by unprecedented numbers of people in developed countries are a triumph of human ingenuity. This remarkable achievement has produced economic, political, and societal changes that are both positive and negative. While there is every reason to be optimistic that continuing progress in public health and the biomedical sciences will contribute to even longer and healthier lives in the future, a disturbing and potentially dangerous trend has also emerged in recent years. There has been a resurgence and proliferation of health care providers and entrepreneurs who are promoting anti-aging products and lifestyle changes that they claim will slow, stop, or reverse the processes of aging. Even though in most cases there is little or no scientific basis for these claims (1), the public is spending vast sums of money on these products and lifestyle changes, some of which may be harmful (2). Scientists are unwittingly contributing to the proliferation of these pseudo-scientific anti-aging products by failing to participate in the public dialogue about the genuine science of aging research. The purpose of this document is to warn the public against the use of ineffective and potentially harmful anti-aging interventions, and provide a brief but authoritative consensus statement from 51 internationally recognized scientists in the field [see (104)] of what we know and do not know about intervening in human aging. What follows is a list of issues related to aging that are prominent in both the lay and scientific literature, and the consensus statements about these issues that grew out of debates and discussions among the 51 scientists associated with this paper.”

Sci. Aging Knowl. Environ., 19 June 2002
Vol. 2002, Issue 24, p. pe9
[DOI: 10.1126/sageke.2002.24.pe9]