Healthy Longevity Is Not Just For Billionaires.

By Erica and Karen

Tech billionaires are spending on research directed towards increasing our life spans—and our our health spans-–so we can live longer lives in good health. Good news, right? Well, maybe. But perhaps a little curious.

According to longevity researchers, the biggest risk factor for all diseases is aging. So, these researchers want to target cellular decline so that people do not become more disease-prone with each passing year. But, according to the FT article (paywall) reporting the topic, the researchers can’t get the money to do their work from anywhere except private parties-–the tech billionaires.

Investing in the possibility of healthy longevity seems like a really good idea. At least for those who want to live longer, it seems obvious that living those extra years in good health is better than living them in poor health. For one thing, it will be more fun for the long-lifers, and for another, they will not burden society with the costs of poor health. 

For that reason, it would seem that investing in healthy longevity would be a social good that should invite government investmenr. So why does it not do so? And, unless everyone benefts equally, which may be more likely if any investment is through government-funded public health, how does it all play out? Will who wins depend upon the circumstances into which each of us is born, and the decisions we make much earlier in life. Will advancing healthy longevity amplify inequality?

The U.S. National Association of Medicine is indeed concerned about these and related issues. In 2022 issued a report entitled Global Roadmap for Healthy Longevity, the NAM said:

There are two challenges to be understood: (1) how to maintain health and function across our longer lives such that lengthening lifespan is not also a lengthening of illness span, and (2) how we can realize the opportunities offered by a long-lived and healthy population.

They concluded that the risks of inequality were high, as was a cost to society.

[S]cientific evidence shows that the majority of chronic diseases are preventable, and that prevention works at every age and stage of life. Further, the subset of individuals who are the beneficiaries of cumulative health-promoting conditions across the life course are demonstrating healthy longevity, defined as “the state in which years in good health approach the biological lifespan, with physical, cognitive and social functioning, enabling well-being across populations”. However, only a minority of people in any country have the benefit of the necessary investments that promote health, and disparities in access to these investments across the life course are a major cause of unhealthy longevity. The costs of inaction in the face of widening disparities include the high risk of young people aging with more ill health, and the attendant costs to them and society.

Society would benefit if everyone were to age in a healthy way—just as it did when investments were made in public health in the 1950s.

Society would also benefit because if we combine the benefits of healthy aging with the attributes of aging—experience and wisdom—society will reap even further benefits.

Further, the commission reports that when people have health and function in older age, the considerable cognitive and socioemotional capabilities and expertise that accrue with aging, and the prosocial goals of older age, constitute human and social capital assets that are unprecedented in both nature and scale. Contrary to disproven myths, workforce participation not only brings these valuable capabilities (such that intergenerational teams in the workplace are more productive and innovative than single-age-group teams), but older people working is also associated with more jobs for younger individuals.

So shouldn’t the government, rather than billionaires, be funding this research? Healthy longevity os a critical good for the entire global community. The benefits will be much greater if the opportunity is made available to all. Just as it was in the 1950s, when public health advances gave us the healthy longevity we enjoy today.