Longevity Research

Can Super Longevity Solve the Population Problem?

posted on July 14, 2008

Consider these points edited from a paper presented several weeks ago by Herb Meyer at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Mr. Meyer is widely credited with being the first senior U.S. Government official to forecast the Soviet Union's collapse, for which he later was awarded the U.S. National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal, the intelligence community's highest honor. Formerly an associate editor of FORTUNE, he is also the author of several books.

Some of His Conclusions

Maintaining a steady population requires a birth rate of 2.1. In Western Europe, the birth rate currently stands at 1.5, or 30 percent below replacement. In 30 years there will be 70 to 80 million fewer Europeans than there are today. The current birth rate in Germany is 1.3. Italy and Spain are even lower at 1.2. At that rate, the working age population declines by 30 percent in 20 years, which has a huge impact on the economy. When you don't have young workers to replace the older ones, you have to import them.

In Japan, the birthrate is 1.3. As a result, Japan will lose up to 60 million people over the next 30 years. Because Japan has a very different society than Europe, they refuse to import workers. Instead, they are just shutting down. Japan has already closed 2,000 schools, and is closing them down at the rate of 300 per year. Japan is also aging very rapidly. By 2020, one out of every five Japanese will be at least 70 years old.

The birth rate in Russia is so low that by 2050 their population will be smaller than that of Yemen.

Nobody has any idea about how to run an economy with those demographics. Europe and Japan, which comprise two of the world's major economic engines, aren't merely in recession, they're shutting down. This will have a huge impact on the world economy, and it is already beginning to happen.

When the birth rate drops below replacement, the population ages. With fewer working people to support more retired people, it puts a crushing tax burden on the smaller group of working age people. As a result, young people delay marriage and having a family. Once this trend starts, the downward spiral only gets worse.

These countries have abandoned all the traditions they formerly held in regard to having families and raising children. The U.S. birth rate is 2.0, just below replacement. We have an increase in population because of immigration. When broken down by ethnicity, the Anglo birth rate is 1.6 (same as France) while the Hispanic birth rate is 2.7.

In the U.S., the baby boomers are starting to retire in massive numbers. This will push the elder dependency ratio from 19 to 38 over the next 10 to 15 years. This is not as bad as Europe, but still represents the same kind of trend.

The world's most effective birth control device is money. As society creates a middle class and women move into the workforce, birth rates drop. Having large families is incompatible with middle class living. The quickest way to drop the birth rate is through rapid economic development.

NOTE: Pretty sobering, isn’t it? So what’s the solution? Longevity… and lots of it. Keep the elderly alive, healthy and productive. Keep them out of retirement, hospitals and nursing homes where they drain resources, and have them contribute to the economy when they are at the peak of their productive capacity.
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LATEST HEALTHY LIFE EXTENSION HEADLINES

Sonia Arrison on Aging 2008 (July 11 2008) http://www.technewsworld.com/story/Technology-and-the-Aspiring-Methuselahs-63748.html?welcome=1215782396
From TechNewsWorld: "More than 200 scientists and longevity activists gathered at UCLA recently to discuss advancements in repairing humans. New technology is making it possible to imagine a world with ever greater life spans, but old world issues pervaded the discussions. 'We should mount a war on aging where it is not a disease, it is THE disease,' said Gregory Stock, Ph.D., director of the UCLA Program on Medicine, Technology and Society. To do this, Stock proposed an 'aggressive publicly funded program.' While no one challenged this idea on the panel, during the two days of the conference, it was clear that some questioned the efficacy of such a plan. Indeed, in a less formal setting, [Bruce] Ames lamented the fact that under the mostly government-run system of science grants, the 'true visionaries are not getting funding.' This is not surprising, given that government agencies are by nature political, making decisions with an eye toward public opinion, not necessarily the best and brightest ideas. Agencies like the U.S. National Institutes of Health and particularly the Food and Drug Administration typically become risk averse over time, as it's easier to deny approval for an idea or product that no one ever finds out about than it is to take a chance on a revolutionary idea and have it flop."

AGEs and DNA Damage? (July 10 2008) http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-07/esfh-dlt070808.php
A research group is proposing that buildup of advanced glycation end-products (AGEs) causes DNA damage in addition to known other issues: "The scientists studied semen samples from men with diabetes who were receiving insulin therapy. When we looked for DNA damage, we saw a very different picture. Sperm RNA was significantly altered, and many of the changes we observed are in RNA transcripts involved in DNA repair. Diabetics have a significant decrease in their ability to repair sperm DNA, and once this is damaged it cannot be restored. We found a class of compounds known as advanced glycation end products (AGEs) in the male reproductive tract. These [accumulate] during normal aging. They are dependent on life style - diet, smoking etc - and in many diabetic complications are centrally implicated in DNA damage. ... The scientists intend to follow up their work by trying to determine how AGEs cause and contribute to DNA damage. They believe that they may have uncovered a new role for AGEs, and that their influence goes far beyond diabetes and its complications." I think that this is proposed on a fairly weak correlation, but we'll see where it goes.

The Longevity Dividend Message (July 09 2008) http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-07/uoia-ess070708.php
Via EurekAlert!, advocacy from those who believe that engineering metabolism to slow the accumulation of age-related damage is the only way ahead: "The traditional medical approach of attacking individual diseases -- cancer, diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease -- will soon become less effective if we do not determine how all of these diseases either interact or share common mechanisms with aging. All living things, including humans, possess biochemical mechanisms that influence how quickly we age and, through dietary intervention or genetic alteration, it is possible to extend lifespan to postpone aging-related processes and diseases. We believe that the potential benefits of slowing aging processes have been underrecognized by most of the scientific community. We call on the health-research decision-makers to allocate substantial resources to support and develop practical interventions that slow aging in people." Meanwhile, initiatives to raise funding to develop the means to repair - rather than just slow - the damage of aging continue. I believe those initiatives to be the superior path forward, as they seem likely to be less complex, less costly, and more effective.

MSNBC on Calorie Restriction (July 09 2008) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25588227/
How far we've come in the past five years, from the days in which the mainstream media poured scorn on the practice of calorie restriction. If there is a lesson here, it is to observe the way in which the Calorie Restriction Society engaged and encouraged the research community: progress in science is a necessary accompanyment to progress in advocacy for a cause. From MSNBC: "While the quest for the proverbial Fountain of Youth is endless and typically fruitless, one method known to extend the human lifespan by up to five years has quietly become accepted among leading researchers. The formula is simple: Eat less. It could add years to your life, several experts now say. And done in moderation, it could at least help you live a more healthy life. The only question is: Will the average person do it? Here's a rough rule of thumb that many experts generally agree on now: Eat 15 percent less starting at age 25 and you might add 4.5 years to your life. Eating fewer calories also reduces age-related chronic diseases such as cancers, heart disease, and stroke in rodents. That's important because it suggests ways to not just make us live longer, but to allow us to age more gracefully, healthwise."

FuturePundit on Resveratrol Results (July 07 2008) http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/005336.html
FuturePundit comments on the latest resveratrol research: "Surprisingly, resveratrol extends life of those on the calorie restriction diet. I say 'surprisingly' because calorie restriction is already causing most of the changes that resveratrol causes. But note that mice on the middle range calorie diet did not live longer as a result of resveratrol treatment. Maybe on the [every other day feeding] mice the resveratrol worked by mimicking the effects of calorie restriction on the feeding days? My reaction to this study is mild disappointment. Resveratrol did not work nearly as well as calorie restriction in extending life. You still need to starve yourself to assure a longer life." It's convenient verbal shorthand, but the practice of calorie restriction is not "starving yourself." It's important to be correct in these matters - calorie restriction is elimination of calories above those needed to be healthy, while still obtaining an optimal level of micronutrients. Many slim, healthy people are already practicing a form of mild calorie restriction when measured against commonly recommended dietary intake. Still, my fervent hope is that calorie restriction will become irrelevant and outstripped by the first medical interventions to extend healthy life, hopefully within the next 20 years.
My money is on technologies of mitochondrial replacement.

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