GeroScience authors call for longer lives to be a goal of aging research alongside more healthy years

GeroScience authors call for longer lives to be a goal of aging research alongside more healthy years

On October 7, David Gems, Ekaterina Iijima, and João Pedro de Magalhães published an opinion article in GeroScience. They examine the view that aging research should focus solely on extending the years people live in good health and remain independent, and propose including life extension as a goal.

Geriatrics, the branch of medicine concerned with older adults, addresses disease and loss of independence in later life. Its aim is to delay these problems until closer to death so that chronic illness occupies a smaller share of a person's life. Geriatrician James Fries called this strategy “compression of morbidity.”

Biogerontology, the study of the mechanisms of aging, asks a different question: whether the rate of aging itself can be altered. In animal experiments, some interventions have extended both healthspan and lifespan. The authors consider several possible outcomes of such interventions in humans: people may gain more healthy years, but the period of impaired health in later life could also grow longer.

Physicians already make decisions involving similar tradeoffs: treating cardiovascular disease, amputating a foot affected by life-threatening gangrene, and removing a brain tumor can delay death while leaving a person with impairments.

“Life with moderately impaired health is generally preferable to death.”

The authors therefore propose assessing future interventions by asking two questions: whether they add years of good health and whether they help preserve life. They argue that decisions about such treatment should reflect the individual's own preferences.