Implementation of longevity-promoting supplements and medications in public health practice: achievements, challenges and future perspectives

Abstract

Background: Most modern societies undergo rapid population aging. The rise in life expectancy, nevertheless, is not accompanied, to date, by the same increment of healthspan. Efforts to increase healthspan by means of supplements and pharmaceuticals targeting aging-related pathologies are presently in spotlight of a new branch in geriatric medicine, geroscience, postulating that aging could be manipulated in such a way that will in parallel allow delay the onset of all age-associated chronic disorders.

Discussion: Currently, the concept of the "longevity dividend" has been developed pointed out that the extension of healthspan by slowing the rate of aging is the most efficient way to combat various aging-related chronic illnesses and disabling conditions than combating them one by one, what is the present-day approach in a generally accepted disease-based paradigm. The further elaboration of pharmaceuticals specifically targeted at age-associated disorders (commonly referred to as 'anti-aging drugs') is currently one of the most extensively developed fields in modern biogerontology. Some classes of chemically synthesized compounds and nutraceuticals such as calorie restriction mimetics, autophagy inductors, senolytics and others have been identified as having potential for anti-aging intervention through their possible effects on basic processes underlying aging. In modern pharmaceutical industry, development of new classes of anti-aging medicines is apparently one of the most hopeful directions since potential target group may include each adult individual. Implementation of the geroscience-based approaches into healthcare policy and practice would increase the ratio of healthy to unhealthy population due to delaying the onset of age-associated chronic pathologies. That might result in decreasing the biological age and increasing the age of disability, thus increasing the age of retirement and enhancing income without raising taxes. Economic, social and ethical aspects of applying the healthspan- and lifespan-promoting interventions, however, have to be comprehensively debated prior to their implementation in public health practice.

Keywords: Aging; Anti-aging drugs; Geroscience; Healthspan; Life extension; Longevity dividend.