In a recent issue of the journal Science, faculty members from CWRU call for public dialogue about the social implications of anti-aging research.

Specifically, they urge the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to take "the lead in developing a sustained, widespread program of dialogues that will engage both the biomedical community and the larger public in policy-making conversations."

In the article, the authors—Eric T. Juengst, Robert H. Binstock, Maxwell J. Mehlman and Stephen G. Post of CWRU's Department of Bioethics—write that the NIH is encouraging biogerontologists (biologists who study the fundamental mechanisms of aging) to make substantial advances against aging through three models of intervention.

The first is to prevent age-associated maladies by intervening in the underlying aging process. In this model, the researchers hope to increase the average human life expectancy but not increase the maximum human life span.

The second model hopes to decelerate aging, not only to increase the average life expectancy but also to increase the maximum life span. Possible outcomes of this may be to have 90-year-olds who are as healthy and active as today's 50-year-olds, with an occasional person living to 140 years. The most radical model of research seeks to arrest aging.

"Here the hope is to develop the ability to actually reverse the processes of aging as they occur in adults," the authors write.

Should any of these paths lead to success, "radical societal changes would take place in the nature of politics and public policies, the law, labor, housing markets, family life and virtually every social institution," warn the authors.

They note that, "although the achievement of any of these biogerontological visions may seem improbable at present, history shows how the development in biomedical science like the cloning of mammals can catch society unawares by accomplishing the 'impossible.'"

"It's important that we begin now," Juengst said, "to undertake discussion of whether we really want to extend life so dramatically."