Emerging technological advancements are driving innovations all around us, transforming how we live, work and interact with one another, today and in the future. Over the past 20 years, scientists have acquired a much fuller understanding of the biological pathways of ageing and are developing ways to slow, stall and possibly even reverse its impact on the body and mind. RBC Wealth Management’s Head of Investment Strategy, Frédérique Carrier dives into a few of the most promising advances and explores the link between scientific breakthroughs and intriguing investments.From lifespan to healthspan Life expectancy has doubled over the past 150 years thanks to medical and social progress.
Today, children born in high-income nations can expect to have an even chance of living past their 80s. A lot of attention has now turned to extending healthspan, or the number of healthy years before the end of life. Between 16 percent and 20 percent of life is spent in a state of daily battle against an increasing burden of chronic diseases in late life, according to a 2018 article in Nature, a peer-reviewed scientific publication.
With populations ageing, health-care costs are surging and will likely continue to rise, putting a strain on society and the economy. The global population of people 60 years and older will reach 2.1 billion by 2050, according to the World Health Organisation. No country will experience this more acutely than China, which is expected to have more than 500 million people over the age of 60 around mid-century.What is ageing?
Scientists have come up with two hypotheses to explain the cause of ageing from a biological point of view. Some contend ageing is caused by the same developmental processes that are useful early on in life, only that they continue to run haphazardly into adulthood, causing the deterioration that comes with old age. For instance, the bone loss that women experience after menopause could be the continuation of the processes that draw calcium from the skeleton to produce milk in breastfeeding mothers, or far-sightedness in middle age could be caused by the lenses of the eye continuing to grow into adulthood.
Others posit that ageing is the gradual loss of the body’s ability to repair itself. When it is young, the body repairs damage to ensure genes can be passed on to the next generation. While scientists still debate the processes that drive ageing, they tend to agree on the physiological details of ageing, i.e., the cellular changes which accompany the progressive decline in physical functions over time.
In “Hallmarks of ageing: An expanding universe,” Carlos López-Otín, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Oviedo in Spain, led a team that produced a widely used list of the characteristics of ageing in 2013. In 2023, they updated it to account for the advancements in biological sciences since initial publication. Twelve “hallmarks” were identified that worsen with age, accelerate if stimulated, and seem to slow down with treatment.
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