How to save Medicare: the anti-aging remedy

Abstract

The unprecedented progress in aging research has revealed that rapamycin, a clinically approved drug, is actually an anti-aging agent, which potentially could be employed to delay age-related diseases, thus extending healthy life span. The possibility of preventing diseases by staying young is remarkable in itself. At the same time this advance could save Medicare as we know it. Here I discuss how anti-aging interventions could solve otherwise intractable political problems without tax increases or curtailment of health care benefits.

Figure 1. From longer life span to longer health span (and life span)

From A to B: Standard medicine increases lifespan by preventing death from age-related diseases. It simultaneously increases a number of old people suffering from age-related diseases. A ratio healthspan to lifespan is decreased. From B to C: Anti-aging intervention will slow down aging and delay the onset of age-related diseases. This in theory will restore a ratio of healthspan to lifespan.