A Reminder of the Cost of Aging

Fight Aging!

Do you want to live a longer life in good health? Simple practices can make some difference, such as exercise or calorie restriction. But over the long haul all that really matters is progress in medicine: building new classes of therapy to repair and reverse the known root causes of aging. The sooner these treatments arrive, the more lives will be saved. Find out how to help »

Kevin Perrott provides a reminder of the cost of degenerative aging - a cost we are doing far too little to mitigate: "our ability to reduce the suffering of the aging process will require the use of technologies that have yet to be developed ... The need for such technologies is great. In Canada, according to the Insitute on Aging, the cost of age-related disease is growing rapidly. In 1993, musculoskeletal degeneration led to costs of more than 20 billion dollars, exceeding those of cancer ($13b) or cardiovascular problems ($19.8b). In the U.S. over 220 billion dollars per year is spent on giving the dependent elderly some quality of life as they deal with debilitating conditions. ... The benefits to slowing or preventing the degeneration that eventually occurs to even those who live the healthiest of lifestyles are obvious."

Link: http://www.healthextension.net/archives/2006/05/expensive_agere.html