From Wolverine to Peter Pan – can societies age gracefully?
Andrew Scott talks to the FT’s Martin Wolf about longevity
In a recent edition of the FT’s The Economics Show podcast, the FT’s Martin Wolf speaks to LBS’ Andrew J Scott, asking the question, ‘Can societies age gracefully?’
“Ageing is malleable,” says Professor Scott and considers the example of 90-year-olds who are still very fit and healthy, while acknowledging that there are many 50-year-olds whose health is failing.
Scott believes that getting more people to be healthy 90-year-olds is the crux of the issue for societies. “We’re sort of on a path where we’re keeping people alive, but we’re not keeping them healthy. So, we’ve got a remarkably successful health system that has kept us alive for longer, but it’s not keeping us healthy for longer. It’s done a brilliant job of getting past infant diseases and mid-life diseases, but it’s not really tackling chronic diseases very well.”
Literature and popular cinema provide inspiration, and helps Scott to apply some economic tools with which to examine the question of how important is ageing better.
He cites the examples of Jonathan Swift’s immortal yet decrepit Struldbruggs, Wilde’s Dorian Gray, who remains untouched by the ageing process (while a portrait of his youthful self ages horribly), and the forever youthful yet immature Peter Pan. The Marvel hero, Wolverine, is also considered, who lives a long, vigorous life thanks to bio-intervention.
“The interesting thing about those four different characters is it helps me use some economic tools to say, hey, how important is ageing better?”
The problem of today’s health system, is, Scott reflects, that “we try to pick off diseases one by one”.
“What if we could actually tackle the biological pathways of ageing? And by that what would happen is that we would reduce mortality and we’d improve health. So we’d be living for longer and we’d be in better health for longer.”
Wolf and Scott conclude the podcast in agreement. The “ageing society” is the product of tremendous achievements which we would never give up. “It creates challenges, there’s no doubt. But it also creates some pretty big opportunities. And we should remember these opportunities and should we design policy around it.”
'Martin Wolf speaks to Andrew J Scott: Can societies age gracefully?' can be listened to here
