Advances in anti-ageing technology could extend life to 100 within a matter of years. Yet these discoveries could have huge social implications and cause more harm than good, a scientist has warned, writes Dick Ahlstrom, Science Editor.
Stanford University's Prof Shripad Tuljapurkar yesterday outlined a less-than-positive world view of living longer, at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in St Louis, Missouri.
An immediate effect is a burgeoning world population, he suggests. "One thing that happens right away, which nobody seems to have thought of, is that the total global population increases dramatically."
Current population estimates of eight billion by 2030 could actually reach 10 or 11 billion. "In many countries, this would have an enormous and not necessarily positive impact. For example the idea that China would go from 1.5 to 1.8 billion, just because of this, is a bit frightening," he said.
Rich and poor nations alike will struggle to cope with a dramatic increase in the numbers of elderly people who no longer work, he said. The "national dependency ratio" is the balance between the proportion of retired people to working people in a population.
By 2035 the US dependency ratio is expected to double from about one retired to five working to two retired and five working. Yet if longer lives are factored in, the true dependency ratio will be more like four retired to five working. "It is staggering to think about the fiscal effects of this," he said.
Our near universal desire to live longer will also probably fuel greater world inequality, Prof Tuljapurkar added. He predicts that access to anti-ageing technologies will be confined to the wealthy countries. "Are some people going to be left behind? Are we going to make society far more unequal than it is now?"
The companies likely to control these drugs and therapies have a poor track record in "making things available to those who can't pay for them", he said. "If we can't deal with Aids in Africa, the chance that we'll be able to deliver these anti-ageing technologies to other nations is pretty slim," he added.
A longer life-span could, however, be a boon for many European countries with low birth rates, he suggests. It could halt population decline, although the resultant population will be much older on average than in the past.