“All this stuff seemed like science fiction a few years ago, but now we have it, at least in mice.” “Aging is not such a deep part of our biology that it can’t be changed,” said Steven Austad, chair of the biology department at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. “We may be at the beginning of a time when drugs approved for diabetes or macular degeneration are actually working because they are delaying the onset of aging,” said Dan Perry, founder of the Alliance for Aging Research, a Washington-based advocacy group.Īnd while it is not yet clear whether humans will one day live 150 years, as some have predicted, scientists are optimistic that the number of years of healthy life - or “health span” - of humans can be significantly increased and the infirmities associated with aging reduced. In fact, drugs already in use for some age-related diseases may turn out to work because they are delaying aging overall. Even minor progress in slowing the aging process would be more groundbreaking than major progress that tackles just one illness, they say. Longevity scientists say the key to extending healthy life lies in focusing on aging itself rather than on aging-related diseases. Increasing life expectancy by 2.2 years by slowing aging would save $7.1 trillion in disability and entitlement programs over 50 years, according to a paper in Health Affairs co-authored by Olshansky, who is also a research associate at the University of Chicago’s Center on Aging. Not only will living to 100 become more common one day, longevity experts say, but the quality of life in the final decades might also be drastically improved, reducing the burdens imposed by an aging population. The economic and social implications could be staggering. How old does your face look? How the technology works. National Institute on Aging director Richard Hodes said the NIH would also like to work on the topic with some of the emerging organizations. Another organization, Human Longevity Inc., headed by the well-known genomics researcher Craig Venter, launched this spring with plans to build a database of human DNA sequencing to tackle diseases of aging it raised $70 million in an initial round of funding.Īnd the National Institutes of Health recently launched an unprecedented collaborative initiative across 20 of its 27 specialized institutes to address aging and longevity. Google last fall announced Calico, a new enterprise focusing on aging and associated diseases, for which it has been recruiting top scientists it has not revealed details of its plans or how much it is investing. Factoring in the subject’s race, gender, education level and smoking history - all known to affect longevity prospects - it would analyze each section of cheek, eye, brow, mouth and jowl looking for shading variations that signal lines, dark spots, drooping and other age-related changes that might indicate how the person is doing compared with others of the same age and background.Īs the United States skews increasingly older, research into extending life span and, in particular, increasing the number of healthy years is a boom topic for public and private entities. The technology involves using a computer to scan a photograph of a face for signs of aging. There’s also a potential benefit for individuals: The technology might prod them to change their health habits before it’s too late. The research is still in its early stages, but the idea of using facial recognition technology has prompted interest from insurance company executives who see potential for using it in determining premiums, Olshansky said. “And we also know that the children of people who senesce more slowly tend to live longer than other people.” ![]() “We know in the field of aging that some people tend to senesce, or grow older, more rapidly than others, and some more slowly,” said Jay Olshansky, a biodemographer at the University of Illinois at Chicago who came up with the idea. A group of scientists is working on a system that would analyze an individual’s prospects based on how his or her face has aged. ![]() ![]() And that those wrinkles, mottled spots and saggy parts, when fed into a computer, could estimate how long you will live.įacial recognition technology, long used to search for criminals and to guess how a missing child might look as an adult, may soon become personal. Imagine that an insurance underwriter comes to your house and, along with noting your weight and blood pressure, snaps a photo of your face. Researchers are working on technology that will look at the way a person's face has aged so far to estimate how it may age in the future.
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