Policy & Practice

Research on Healthy Aging

More than 90 scientists, research advocates, and other experts are calling on policy makers around the world to make research into healthy aging a priority. The researchers signed on to a statement that calls the slowing of the aging process in humans “scientifically plausible,” providing there is adequate investment. Investing more in understanding the biology of aging is important, the statement said, because of the individual and societal costs associated with debilitating late-in-life illnesses. “A modest deceleration in the rate of biological aging would produce the equivalent of simultaneous major breakthroughs against every single fatal and nonfatal disease and disorder associated with growing older,” said the statement, which was released in September at a symposium on Capitol Hill sponsored by the Alliance for Aging Research.