Prakash Per­sad

The re­cent­ly re­leased CSO da­ta in­di­cat­ed that the pop­u­la­tion above the age of 55 now stands at al­most 19 per cent. This rep­re­sents a more than dou­bling of that in 1980. In ac­tu­al num­bers, it is a lit­tle over one quar­ter of a mil­lion peo­ple.

This fol­lows the trend in the de­vel­oped world where the Stan­ford Cen­ter on Longevi­ty in­di­cates that there has been a 30-year in­crease in life ex­pectan­cy. This is due, in part, to ad­vances in med­ical sci­ences and al­lied fields in­clud­ing nu­tri­tion and sports sci­ence. Ge­net­ics, how­ev­er, may be the dom­i­nant fac­tor in that there are those whose lifestyle does not con­form to gen­er­al­ly ac­cept­ed tenets of healthy liv­ing but who nev­er­the­less live to an ad­vanced age.

The late fit­ness gu­ru Jack Lalanne, who died at the age of 96, pro­mot­ed prop­er eat­ing, ex­er­cise, pos­i­tive think­ing and re­lax­ation. Con­tin­u­ing clin­i­cal and re­search stud­ies have con­firmed this ap­proach. In fact, the di­et rec­om­mend­ed for longevi­ty and dis­ease pre­ven­tion in­cludes one high in veg­eta­bles, fruits and whole grains and very low in an­i­mal prod­ucts and re­fined car­bo­hy­drates, in ad­di­tion to ex­er­cis­ing.

The im­por­tance of the mind-body con­nec­tion has emerged as a sig­nif­i­cant fac­tor. Med­i­ta­tion and mind­ful­ness can play a crit­i­cal role in stress re­duc­tion and weight con­trol and are thus be­ing pro­mot­ed as part of the pro­gramme on holis­tic and pre­ven­tive med­i­cine now be­ing em­pha­sised.

De­spite the ad­vances made in the sci­ence of longevi­ty, the av­er­age life span is 80-plus years. Peo­ple 90 and be­yond are still the ex­cep­tion, for the age­ing process may be de­layed by lifestyle changes but can­not be stopped. So the fo­cus now is on re­search to de­lay and re­verse the ag­ing process and to de­vel­op­ing a range of as­sis­tive tech­nolo­gies.

Thus ef­forts are un­der­way to gain a com­pre­hen­sive un­der­stand­ing of the age­ing process in or­der to be able to ob­tain tech­nolo­gies to re­tard or re­verse the process. The thrust here is in ar­eas of cel­lu­lar mol­e­c­u­lar bi­ol­o­gy and ge­net­ics. Mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary teams com­pris­ing physi­cians, bi­ol­o­gists and bio­med­ical en­gi­neers are en­gaged in seek­ing re­gen­er­a­tive med­ical so­lu­tions and re­ju­ve­na­tion biotech­nolo­gies. These in­clude stem cell ap­pli­ca­tions and lab­o­ra­to­ry grown re­place­ment or­gans.

As these tech­nolo­gies come to mat­u­ra­tion and fruition, the need for eth­i­cal guide­lines will be­come even more nec­es­sary and thus the present in­tense de­bates might seem quite mild in com­par­i­son to those that will rage in the near fu­ture. Many so­cial and eco­nom­ic is­sues will need be re­solved. Among the more ur­gent will be the fi­nanc­ing of the bur­geon­ing costs of an in­creas­ing and longer-liv­ing post-re­tire­ment pop­u­la­tion.

The quest to re­main young "for­ev­er" will need to be re­vis­it­ed. Wouldn't be­ing fit and ac­tive through­out one's life be a more prac­ti­cal and eth­i­cal goal? In this re­gard, re­cu­per­a­tive and as­sis­tive tech­nolo­gies should be the fo­cus of ex­pen­di­ture and ef­fort.

As­sis­tive tech­nolo­gies like pros­thet­ics and in­tel­li­gent ro­bots im­prove the qual­i­ty of life, ir­re­spec­tive of age. There are re­search ro­bots that are quite ef­fec­tive in phys­i­cal ther­a­py and com­mon­ly used de­vices like in­tel­li­gent walk­ing sticks and per­son­al mo­bile trans­port de­vices that al­low aged or dif­fer­ent­ly abled peo­ple to func­tion ef­fec­tive­ly in the work and so­cial en­vi­ron­ment.

The sci­ence of longevi­ty, more than any oth­er sci­en­tif­ic en­deav­our, will have to con­front, head on, the is­sue as to whether it is a de­sir­able or re­al­is­tic goal to en­gage in ef­forts to re­verse the ag­ing process. Who will make the de­ter­mi­na­tion as to what will be an ac­cept­able lifes­pan, and what will that be: 90, 100, 120 years?Sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy have suc­ceed­ed in mak­ing our lives longer and more pro­duc­tive. They can al­so be used to bring about great mis­ery and de­struc­tion. We need to be clear about the road ahead.