Life Extension Magazine September 2011
New Initiative to Accelerate Anti-Aging Research
By William Faloon
By William Faloon
This magazine opened up with an analogy as to how aging might be eradicated similar to the way smallpox was.
To elaborate on this a bit further, in 1840 the British government offered free smallpox vaccinations to all its citizens. At that point in time, the most powerful nation on earth proclaimed that smallpox could be prevented.
Move forward to 1900, and most of the world was not vaccinated. The tragic result was that from 1900 to 1980, at least 300 million people needlessly died of smallpox. Some estimates show smallpox may have killed 500 million worldwide from 1900 to 1980.
This outlandish delay in eliminating the scourge of smallpox shows how slowly civilizations adapt to change. For the most part, they disregard proven technologies even as people around them fall sick and die.
Here we are in 2011 and there are multiple ways to postpone age-related disease, yet the majority of the population ignores them. We know that reduced calorie intake, increased physical activity, maintaining blood markers in safe ranges, and ensuring optimal nutrient intake can delay the consequences of premature aging, but we still don’t have an outright cure for normal aging!
Frustratingly, we know about technological advances that might lead to an aging cure, but they remain tantalizingly out of our grasp.
So what Life Extension® has done is set up a website for the purpose of ascertaining how many humans today would be willing to assist in funding accelerated anti-aging research. Activist members have pledged to reach out to wealthy individuals to see if they are willing to help support aggressive research projects aimed at finding a cure for aging.
If enough pledges of support are received, Life Extension and others will coordinate programs and present them to those who indicate a desire to contribute.
If you want to be on this list to receive periodic research proposals for your consideration, please register by logging on to www.lef.org/cureaging
Life Extension assures all those who register that their names and contact information will be kept strictly confidential and that only Life Extension will send them research opportunity reports.
If you know someone who might be interested, we ask that you reach out to them and offer to let us send them a copy of this issue of Life Extension Magazine. They can even register on the www.lef.org/cureaging website before they receive this magazine.
We are confident in the science, but not necessarily in the willingness of enough people to make anti-aging research a personal priority today. We fear that populations will ignore the obvious and continue to make poor lifestyle choices, while failing to support emerging anti-aging technologies that can spare them agonizing suffering and personal extinction.
While we can be optimistic about the long term, too many Life Extension members are reaching a point that requires major breakthroughs, ergo our establishing the www.lef.org/cureaging website. Please log on today if you want to participate.
Cure aging in our lifetime
Never before has such a volume of scientific knowledge existed about the underlying mechanisms of aging and how they may be thwarted.
A growing number of researchers are predicting major advances in our ability to slow and reverse degenerative aging processes.
One obstacle is the bureaucratic regulations that slow the development of new medical technologies.
An even more troubling concern, however, is an epidemic of apathy as it relates to providing funding for promising age-reversal research projects.
Those with disposable income and assets donate monies to all kinds of so-called charities, yet overlook research that could help them live in a youthful state of health for a very long time.
When one considers that aging is the disease that eventually kills us all, you would think that this is where the bulk of medical research emphasis would be focused. Instead, billions of dollars are squandered developing band-aid approaches to degenerative diseases instead of seeking to intervene directly into the aging process itself.
There is a causality dilemma called the “chicken or the egg—which came first.” In the case of aging research, so few dollars are allocated that promising areas are poorly funded or receive no support. The result is that relatively few scientists can afford to make aging research a priority.
All along, it has been the burden of the scientists to show their research had a reasonable chance of evolving into valid anti-aging therapy. They had to beg, borrow and do who knows what else to get to a level that would generate financial support for their work.
So the Life Extension Foundation, a non-profit organization founded in 1980, decided to try a novel method. We know there are millions of enlightened individuals in this world who want to defeat the aging process in their lifetime. Some of them have contributed, but most lack the knowledge to make intelligent choices, even if they desire to.
We want those who are able and willing to help fund anti-aging research to register on this new website (www.lef.org/cureaging). On a periodic basis, you will be sent overviews of research projects that require funding. You’ll be sent direct contact information in case you want to check it out yourself. If a research proposal excites you, then you will be notified how to send funds. Accredited investors may choose to provide some or all the funding and buy rights to the research. Life Extension does not care which way it happens, we just want more resources allocated to the most critical medical urgency of our era—the aging process.
If we were initiating this program 100 years ago, we might be asking you to support research aimed at finding new vaccines and anti-bacterial agents. Those illnesses have largely been eradicated. Today it is the pathological aging process itself that we must develop a cure for.
We ask that you kindly register by visiting www.lef.org/cureaging, so we can provide avant-garde scientists the opportunity to impress you. If you’re lucky, you may even benefit from an anti-aging breakthrough before it is made available to the general public.