While it is still a small field in comparison to much of biotechnology and medicine, research into slowing and reversing the aging process has achieved legitimacy and growth in the past decade. This newfound capacity for progress results from a great deal of work by patient advocates, visionary researchers, and other allies to overcome public disinterest and a hostile leadership in the field of gerontology.

Sadly, most participants in the now energized research and development communities are pursuing varieties of a poor strategy, often called geroscience. They have taken the wrong realization regarding the plasticity of aging, and are working on lines of development that are unlikely to produce large effects on human life span. This work descends from the earliest and best supported modern investigations of aging interventions. It involves the search for longevity-related genes, near all of which manipulate stress response systems (such as autophagy) that can slow aging in short lived animals. Calorie restriction research is one of the major areas of work, but there are numerous others that touch on ways to make animal metabolism more optimal for longevity than is the case in the wild.

Unfortunately, we already have all the evidence we need to show that these systems of cellular maintenance - activated by stresses such as starvation, cold, heat, and toxins - have comparatively small effects on longevity in long-lived species. Calorie restriction extends life by up to 40% in mice, but it certainly doesn't add more than a few years in humans. Further, the practice of calorie restriction cannot greatly reverse the state of aging once it has occurred. It is very much a case of better than nothing, but not a road to dramatic rejuvenation or lengthening of life.

Some people see the uptake of interest in aging research and the building of a longevity industry, and feel justified in saying that an inflection point has passed. That is the case in today's open access paper, quoted below. The real inflection point still lies ahead, however, in the adoption of a truly viable strategy to produce human rejuvenation - a strategy based on damage repair that is quite different from the majority of present work on aging. This inflection point will occur when significant portions of the research community buckle down to work on repairing the molecular damage that causes aging, rather than tinkering with metabolism to slightly slow down the accumulation of that damage. This transition has yet to happen. Until it does, progress will be marginal.

From discoveries in ageing research to therapeutics for healthy ageing