Information Matrix

It may seem obvious, but when encountering longevity research, it bears repeating: human biology is not mouse biology. For this reason, one of my resolutions for 2017 was to minimise blogs centered around rodents.

In April 2017 the UK Government unveiled its Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy (CWIS), the first binding legislation ensuring government investment in cycling and walking provision in England. CWIS commits 1.2 billion GBP of spending by 2020/2021, coming from central and local government as well as from local enterprise partnerships.

Historical research we discussed previously proposed that significant increases in average life expectancy would require the cure of multiple diseases of aging. Without considering the detail of cause-of-death calculations conducted more than two decades ago, it certainly seems implausible even now that we'll cross such a dramatic Rubicon in the near-term.

When modelling longevity, age is well-known to be a crucial risk factor. However it is also well-known that the life-expectancy upon attaining any specific age will differ between populations.

Mortality modelling and research is often critically dependent upon assumptions, but certainty over whether those assumptions are well-founded may come only with hindsight.

In 2013, cancers represented more than one third of the top-fifteen causes of all-age mortality in the UK, irrespective of gender. Despite intensive efforts, for some cancers survival rates have scarcely improved for decades.

Breakthrough science in the longevity space doesn't always require the development of new medicines. In fact, there are significant advantages to repurposing medicines already in use, since some of the most expensive aspects of drug development lie in establishing human safety in the trial phase.

Against a background of long-term mortality improvements it is understandable to expect that societal change and developments in health care will be agents of progress. Recent research from Princeton Professor of Economics Anne Case and Nobel prize-winning economist Angus Deaton jolts such complacency in the starkest way.

A Halloween-themed blog for the spooky season perhaps, but it isn't quite as off-topic as it first appears.  In legend, the vampire sought immortality through blood, whether drinking it or — reputedly in the case of Countess Elizabeth Báthory — bathing in it.