Extending healthy years and maximal years

These concrete statements that human life span has hit an unbreakable wall are premature, but we must honestly acknowledge the challenges ahead. It is virtually impossible that human society will fail to innovate and evolve in the coming years, and we must therefore expect that medicine will continue to make advances as it always has done. It would actually be extremely inhuman for it not to do so.

It is also important to be clear that extending life span without retaining health is neither desirable or helpful. This unquestionably presents us with a significant challenge, but our track record is strong and our knowledge of biology grows daily. We shouldn't underestimate the extent of the barriers to progress, but we now have a rough outline of the changes occurring during the aging process and a number of robust animal studies in which both health span and life span were increased (through telomerase induction, senescent cell removal and gene deletion for example). Now, mice are not humans but the research shows us that life span is inherently malleable, if you have the tools to do so.

A positive vision of the future

We know staggeringly more about the aging process than we did even 10 years ago, and while no one alive today knows how long it will take to make significant progress in field, it's one of the most pressing and moral causes in the world today. We live in a predominantly aging world, and one in which millions of elderly are suffering in dependence and chronic illness. We have two options: either leave them to die inhumanely, or do something about it. Aging and age-related disease are deeply interlocked. If we want to live a long time without experiencing cancer, Alzheimer's or cardiovascular disease (to name a few), then we have to intervene in the aging process itself.