Quantum Healthy Longevity for healthy people, planet, and growth

Abstract

It is widely thought that lifespans are increasing globally. However, life expectancy has begun to stagnate in the UK, and is falling in more than 50 countries including the USA. Lifespan stagnation or decrease is a consequence of socioeconomic inequalities, lifestyle factors, and the COVID-19 pandemic. In the UK, the National Health Service spends vast sums treating chronic diseases; by some estimates, 40% of its costs go to treating preventable conditions. UK citizens spend a fifth of their lives in poor health, and there is a 20-year difference in healthy life expectancy between the richest and the poorest, a difference that is widening, not narrowing. Together with unprecedented economic uncertainty, geopolitical strife, and post-pandemic recovery challenges, this burden of ill health is having a substantial impact on economic productivity and resilience. Health-care systems based only on response to illness are no longer affordable, and economies need a more productive workforce. The current model, which focuses on reactive sick-care alone, must be shifted to a new one based on proactive prevention, with the ever-growing recognition that the wealth of nations is not possible without the health of populations. In response to this reality, leaders are coming together for a Quantum Healthy Longevity Innovation Mission that aims to structurally leverage the value of existing assets, reduce duplication and waste in funding allocation, and prioritise effective coordination of key organisations1Cox LS Faragher RGA Linking interdisciplinary and multiscale approaches to improve healthspan—a new UK model for collaborative research networks in ageing biology and clinical translation.Lancet Healthy Longev. 2022; 3: e318-e320Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (1) Google Scholar and resources worldwide (including longevity education and research). We need to radically reimagine short-term, medium-term, and long-term responses at a global, societal, and individual level and significantly invest in an interdependent ecosystem for science and innovation to accelerate healthy longevity at quantum scale and pace. As we are seeing with research on the biology of ageing (geroscience2Ferrucci L Geroscience brings new focus on the life-course approach to health in humans.Innov Aging. 2020; 4: 803Crossref Google Scholar), age-related chronic diseases are not inevitable or untreatable; there are common pathways, defined by the hallmarks of ageing,3López-Otín C Blasco MA Partridge L Serrano M Kroemer G The hallmarks of aging.Cell. 2013; 153: 1194-1217Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (7480) Google Scholar including cell senescence and systemic chronic inflammation, that lead to multiple morbidities. These pathways can now be manipulated with drugs and other interventions4Le Couteur DG Barzilai N New horizons in life extension, healthspan extension and exceptional longevity.Age Ageing. 2022; 51afac156Crossref Scopus (0) Google Scholar early in the disease process, with promising data emerging from early human clinical trials.5Partridge L Fuentealba M Kennedy BK The quest to slow ageing through drug discovery.Nat Rev Drug Discov. 2020; 19: 513-532Crossref PubMed Scopus (134) Google Scholar We need to take a multipronged whole-of-life approach to tackle all the different, but interacting, drivers of health and disease. These include lifestyle factors, such as diet and physical activity; socioeconomic determinants, such as discrimination, early and lifelong education, training and skills, financial status, and social support; and, increasingly, the characteristics of physical environments, such as green spaces and air quality, which need more attention.6Wang C Sierra Huertas D Rowe JW et al.Rethinking the urban physical environment for century-long lives: from age-friendly to longevity-ready cities.Nat Aging. 2021; 1: 1088-1095Crossref PubMed Scopus (4) Google Scholar Particularly, continuous interactions with and cumulative exp