My grandmother, who will soon turn 88, has been in and out of the hospital for the last seven months. As her loving granddaughter, each ER or ICU visit weighs on me more and more, and each time, I pray the hospital is able to help her recuperate from whatever ails her.
In the February 23rd issue of Time magazine, several articles were featured exploring the new medical advances to stop and reverse aging along with other aging-related articles.
According to Alice Park, new discoveries in telomere science are a promising lead in current anti-aging research. Telomeres signal the end of the DNA copying process. As we age, these telomeres begin to wear and shorten, which can result in cells dividing indefinitely. The resulting DNA is a flawed copy that leads to symptoms of aging like graying hair and dysfunctional organs.
One may think this new research would excite me, and that I would like to see my grandmother live forever. Science, however, shouldn’t be working to find a cure to aging or to find a medicine to serve as a metaphorical fountain of youth until our social and economic structures can handle an aging and growing population sustainably.
It’s quite the paradox. I find myself caught between the selfish desire to never part ways with my loved ones and my conscience, which strongly believes longer lives pose a serious threat to humanity.
The problem lies in the cultural adjustments that a society needs to make with a larger and older than ever senior population.
The current structure of the U.S. holds that we are born, go to school, find a steady career, retire around age 62 (according to the Gallup Poll in 2014) and then enjoy retirement bliss until our bodies or minds begin to fail and death claims us.
Longer life spans could result in a serious threat to the well-being of humanity. Longer life spans mean that more people stay on Earth longer. This translates to more people needing food, housing, clean water and other essentials for extended periods of time.
In the U.S., the average life expectancy for those born in 1950 is 68 years old, according to the CDC. This means that the average baby boomer will spend six years in retirement.
In 2010, the CDC reported the average life span for a child born in 2010 to be about 78.7 years. Assuming the retirement age holds, this would increase the amount of time in retirement to sixteen years.
We, as a society, are not ready to support a generation for sixteen years in retirement. Perhaps an equal increase in retirement age would solve the problem or perhaps a revamped Social Security, but the current structure is not sustainable.
While we may someday be ready to support much longer life spans, that day is not yet here. Before we continue to search for the cure to aging, we must first create a new cultural and economic structure that can support increased life spans.
