'Curing aging is not an endpoint the federal drug agency would recognize,' Dr. Westphal says dryly. Instead, both men say, they are working to ameliorate the diseases of aging." For so long as unelected government employees can declare, with no accountability and full force of law, what medicine is permitted and what is not, there will be no direct venture funded efforts to cure aging - or even to take the first steps by aiming to repair specific, identified age-related damage in order to intervene in the aging process. There is no lack of companies, research groups and billions of dollars ready to be directed to that end, as any brief survey of the biotechnology marketplace will show you - but the ignorant few who write policy continue to bury all that potential.

FDA is a scientific bureaucracy with police powers. Patients and physicians are free to choose only those drugs and medical devices that it has approved. When FDA approves a therapy that later turns out to be unexpectedly risky, the agency is the subject of front-page headlines and congressional hearings. On the other hand, when FDA delays a badly needed new therapy, patients will suffer but hardly anyone will blame FDA.

Consider, for example, FDA's 10-year delay, in 1967-76, in approving beta-blockers to prevent death following heart attacks, because of the agency's fear that the drugs might be carcinogenic. During those years, the drugs saved lives in Europe and elsewhere, while an estimated 10,000 heart attack victims unnecessarily died in this country each year. When beta blockers were finally approved in the US, to wide acclaim, hardly anyone raised the lethal effects of FDA's slowness.

As it turns out, however, that extra agency caution doesn't actually improve drug safety. Studies conducted by FDA itself show that the rate of drug withdrawals has remained essentially unchanged over the last 25 years, despite rising and falling approval times during that period.

Division of Aging Biology (DAB)Supports research and training to enhance and extend the human health span through a better understanding of the biological mechanisms underlying the aging process.  

Division of Geriatrics and Clinical Gerontology (DGCG)Supports research on health and disease in the aged and research on aging over the human lifespan, including its relationships to health outcomes.

Normal Human Aging The Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging

It was Dr. Shock's insistence on answering what he considered the discipline's two critical questions that made an impact on the field of gerontology: "What are the underlying biological factors that produce what we perceive as aging?" and, "What are the mechanisms that produce impaired performance with age?" For aging, he insisted, was not a disease.

Nathan Wetherell Shock, Ph.D. began his gerontology career in 1941 as the chief of the newly formed Unit on Gerontology of the Division of Physiology of the five-year-old National Institute of Health. He took this two-man aging unit and built it into the internationally respected Gerontology Research Center of the National Institute on Aging, NIH. Dr. Shock was the catalyst for the emergence of aging research in the United States and overseas for nearly half a century.

The central focus of our research is understanding age-related changes in physiology and the ability to adapt to environmental stress. This understanding is then applied to developing insight about the pathophysiology of age-related diseases. The program seeks to understand the changes associated with healthy aging and to define the criteria for evaluating when a change becomes pathologic.

The National Institute on Aging (NIA) is a division of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), located in Bethesda, Maryland. The NIA leads a broad scientific effort to understand the nature of aging and to extend the healthy, active years of life. In 1974, Congress granted authority to form NIA to provide leadership in aging research, training, health information dissemination, and other programs relevant to aging and older people. Subsequent amendments to this legislation designated the NIA as the primary Federal agency on Alzheimer's disease research.

National Institute on AgingNIAUndertakes research on the biomedical, social, and behavioral aspects of the aging process, prevention of age-related diseases and disabilities, promotion of better quality of life for all older Americans.1974

Nissan Suit Simulates Older Drivers' Difficulties Nissan Designers Use Awkward Suit to Simulate Age Effects, Cater to Increase in Older Drivers

Seven Deadly Myths: Uncovering the Facts About the High Cost of the Last Year of Life

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This report tests some of the most common myths surrounding the financial and medical impact of end-of-life care, separating fact from fiction to show what really happens for most people during their last years of life.

2007 Task Force Report on Aging Research Funding

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The 2007 Task Force on Aging Research Funding--more than 85 non-partisan disease groups, patient advocates, and foundations--urges Congress and the President to chart a better course for medical research on behalf of America's aging population. This year's report of the Task Force calls for a 6.7% increase in funding for the National Institutes of Health in FY 2008. It also presents data on the burden of 27 diseases and conditions that predominately affect older Americans, highlights some of the exciting work the NIH is doing to decrease these burdens, and serves as a resource for policymakers working to establish the funding levels necessary to advance healthy aging.

Extending the human life span: social policy and social ethics

Who wants to live forever? Three arguments against extending the human lifespan

According to the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, the number of first-time total knee replacements is predicted to increase by 673 percent to 3.48 million procedures by 2030, while primary total hip replacements will jump 174 percent. What’s more, the number of knee revisions will leap 522 percent and hip revisions another 237 percent as patients who receive the joints earlier and live longer experience artificial joint failure. Joint replacement surgeries can cost $30,000

Workforce growth will slow almost everywhere and, in some places, will shrink.

Population Aging is Accelerating Age mix varies by region. In the more developed countries of the world, the number of old people will steadily increase, and the number of children will decline (Exhibit 4). By 2015, old people will outnumber children; this has already occurred in several countries, including Japan and Germany. By 2010, the working-age population will begin shrinking; by 2035, total population will begin shrinking.