The Ageless Generation; How Advances in Biomedicine Will Transform the Global Economy

By Alex Zhavoronkov

Over the past 20 years, the biomedical research community has been delivering hundreds of breakthroughs expected to extend human lifespan beyond thresholds imaginable today. However, much of this research has not yet been adopted into clinical practice, nor has it been widely publicized. Biomedicine will transform our society forever by allowing people to live longer and to continue working and contributing financially to the economy longer, rather than entering into retirement and draining the economy through pensions and senior healthcare. Old age will become a concept of the past, breakthroughs in regenerative medicine will continue, and an unprecedented boom to the global economy, with an influx of older able-bodied workers and consumers, will be a reality. A leading expert in aging research, author Alex Zhavoronkov provides a helicopter view on the progress science has already made, from repairing tissue damage to growing functional organs from a single cell, and illuminates the possibilities that the scientific and medical community will soon make into realities. The Ageless Generation is an engaging work that causes us to rethink our ideas of age and ability in the modern world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Jul 2, 2013
• ISBN: 9780230342200

Alex Zhavoronkov

Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD, is the director and trustee of the Biogerontology Research Foundation, a think tank supporting aging research worldwide. He is the author of The Ageless Generation. He heads the laboratory of bioinformatics at the Clinical Research Center for Pediatric Hematology, Oncology and Immunology, and is involved in the World Federation for Regenerative Medicine and the European Federation for Regenerative Medicine.

Reviews for The Ageless Generation; How Advances in Biomedicine Will Transform the Global Economy

[palmaceae · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The Ageless Generation attempts to be a useful book that will influence public policy in terms of providing funding for age research. However, it's not a very interesting read, and maybe I'm just too well read, but I felt like the book was just taking a bunch of stuff I already knew, clumsily repackaging it, and presenting it back to me under the guise of some special new theory. The author could have summed up his point much more concisely; I see no reason why this was stretched out to a full book. I did enjoy the chapter on the origins of "retirement," but that was about it.

[caropg_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This work is a wonderfully vulgarized essai on aging, and its future impact on our society. The author guides us along the way by first introducing us to what is aging on a biological level, what we know about it, and what biomedical science is currently doing to postpone it. Though at first I was afraid that this book would venture into pseudoscience and promesses of immortality, I was pleasantly surprised that it was all groundwork to introduce the readers to the issue of increased longivity and retirement, health issues, and their toll on our economy. Moreover, the book makes a strong and well written case on how to approach the culture of retirement in the future and the necessity on increasing the retirement age if we want to maintain a sustainable economy.One caveat is that some of the facts written in this book only represent half the story in a slightly biased way, though from the necessity of keep the story simple and flowing. For exemple, free radicals are discussed as cellular byproducts and as a cause of cellular aging, though misses the fact that our cells do produce them for a reason, e.g. from our immune cells to combat some pathogens. Since these impressions are due to my own background in science, I can guess that other readers well versed in economy could find similar issues with other parts of the book. Though that is the price to pay when you vulgarize not just one, but many complicated fields that are all interconnected to one another.In the end, I highly recommand this book to everyone, if only to start a conversation which is now frightingly absent from the media, and because the case for postponing the retirement age is better explained than any other politicians managed to do in recent time.

[glennbell_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is an insightful and interesting book. Information on the falling birth rates is interesting and it is unclear whether this slowing down of the number of births per family will ultimately curb the impact of the pollution, global warming, and food and drinking water shortages. The impact of medical advances on the life span has been notable and the author believes that additional future advances will have an even greater impact. Although I already endeavor to maintain good health, Alex's book is an encouragement to continue to be proactive. I firmly recommend the book.

[flyingmonster_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I was interested in this book to find out things I could do now, or in the near future, to increase my own longevity. The book mentioned the generalities that one should exercise and avoid obesity, which most people know already. The book did not indicate how much exercise would lead to what specific health benefits, nor what kinds of exercises to do, nor how to avoid obesity. The only specific new information that I found was that the prescription drug bexarotene has been used to treat a certain type of cancer, and that now it is being studied to treat Alzheimer's disease and might be approved in a couple of years for that purpose. This is the kind of information that I would have liked to have seen a lot more of in the book. Also, there are some errors in the book. For example, on page 126 it says: "An isotope is an atom that contains one or more extra neutrons in its nucleus compared to a normal atom of that substance." However, all forms of an atom are isotopes. For example, Carbon 12 and Carbon 14 are both isotopes of carbon, one with 6 neutrons and one with 8 neutrons (both with 6 protons). The book goes on to say: "Fortifying nutrients and healthy cells by replacing their normal hydrogen and carbon atoms with isotopes could dramatically strengthen their immunity to attacks by free radicals ..." This is a new theory that is highly speculative and which certainly needs a lot more evidence before being used in people. Also, unusual isotopes might be difficult and expensive to produce.

[donbuch1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

As a matter of public policy, the "Ageless Generation" provides the clarion for predicting what people will value most in the next hundred years, namely increased longevity. In an age of economic uncertainty, the world will likely see more polarization of rich and poor. The middle class will be marginalized, edging closer to either join the ranks of the independently wealthy by working longer, or reduced to manual hell among the few working laborers. If pandemics do not get the best of the human population first, those left will find shelter in specialized industries with medical applications sought after by those financially secure whom wish to stay alive longer. As for the book, it is written in a simple journalistic style that reads similar to a string of basic newsprint articles or average commentaries from a fledgling blog. Granted for those who have not kept pace with the latest stem cell research and other medical advances, the author outlines these breakthroughs in some of the chapters. Nevertheless, one could find better information in a magazine article of "Scientific American" than here among the paragraphs of common knowledge.

[johnclaydon · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The Ageless Generation: How Advances in Biomedicine Will Transform the Global EconomyI expected this to be a science book. It is not. It is a policy book, and it is pitched at a very low level. It also reads like it was written by a committee.The very short summary is that our current retirement system is not sustainable, and the solution is for us to work at our jobs longer.