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Transcription of interview with Dr. Aubrey de Grey
Douglas Goldstein, CFPÆ, Financial Planner & Investment Advisor
Dr. Aubrey de Grey is a biomedical gerontologist who is based in Cambridge, but he travels
all over the world.
He is the chief science officer of the SENS Foundation, which is a charity that is dedicated
to combating the aging process.
Douglas Goldstein, financial planner & investment advisor, interviewed de Grey on Arutz Sheva
Radio.
Douglas Goldstein: Do you still hold by the belief that people might live well beyond
what weíre used to?
Dr. Aubrey de Grey: For sure.
In fact, since I was last on the show, thereíve been more announcements about really major
surges forward to exactly the type of anti-aging medicine that Iíve been predicting.
I donít know quite how technical to get, but let me give you a summary of one of them.
A few months ago, there was a report from the Mayo Clinic in the USA, a very prestigious
institution, of the effect on mice of removing a particular type of cell that I have always
said is probably rather bad for us called ìthe death resistant cell,î a cell that
has got into a state where normally there would be signals from other cells around it
telling it to commit suicide but which somehow has genetically lost the information or the
ability to do that so it ended up anyway continuing to be toxic.
This is probably quite an important component of aging, especially aging of the immune system
among other things.
A study a few months ago involved creating a genetically engineered mouse in which theyíve
done two things.
First of all, they had created a situation in which these cells accumulate at an accelerated
rate compared to the way they normally would in an unmodified mouse.
Secondly, they put in a modification so that even though these cells would not respond
naturally to signals telling them to die, nevertheless, they would respond to a simple
drug telling them to die.
What they were able to do was to run an experiment where they first of all just let these mice
age and sure enough, they aged unusually rapidly because of the presence of this cell with
an accelerated rate but then they let these mice age for a little while and then they
gave them the drug that killed off the cells, and the idea was that maybe that would cause
the mice to recover and not to exhibit the ill health of old age that the mice without
the drug did, and that was exactly what happened.
It was very dramatic.
All the manner or different types of aging were actually reversed.
This is a really great proof of concept of one key component of what Iíve been saying
all these years.
Douglas Goldstein: So how much longer did these mice live?
Dr. Aubrey de Grey: For other reasons, they didnít live significantly longer.
There were some aspects of the aging of this artificially transgenetically modified mice
that were not affected by the removal of these cells.
But the key thing is that this is not what itís all about.
Itís all about the health of the mice.
What we can say is that these mice stayed completely healthy until very shortly before
they died, whereas the mice that didnít have the drug and so had this accumulation of these
cells had a really bad time for maybe the last one-third of their life.
Douglas Goldstein: Aging in general is very different today than it was even in the previous
decade.
Can you give some examples of what a person in his 50s today might expect in the next
20 years with regard to quality of life issues?
Dr. Aubrey de Grey: The first thing I want to do in response to that question is actually
to challenge your prefect because really aging today is not all that different from how it
was 20, 30, or 40 years ago.
It happens at a somewhat later chronological age but what happens after you start going
downhill is pretty much the same.
There are some things that are a bit more prevalent than they used to be, such as Alzheimerís
disease, some things that are a little bit less prevalent than they used to be like cardiovascular
disease, but by and large, the story is just the same as it was a few decades ago.
It just happens a bit later because all of these things have been somewhat postponed.
Exactly how they have been postponed is an interesting story, and a lot of people think
that most of the reason why theyíve been postponed is actually because of early life
effects that are way before aging actually happens.
In fact, itís quite likely that the most important thing is prenatal, that people who
are getting old today have started their lives in a situation where the mother had better
nutrition than what wouldíve been the case for their parents for example.
Douglas Goldstein: Because there are obviously a lot of financial implications, the way you
described the difference or the sameness of the way people age today as compared to how
they might have done 10, 20 or 50 years ago implies that if someone lives a longer life,
heís just going to have more spending years ahead of him.
Is this something we need to actually panic about?
Dr. Aubrey de Grey: In fact, the conclusion is the exact opposite of what you just said.
Itís something that we need to be very pleased about and to try to hasten, because spending
is exactly what you want people to do.
The economy revolves around people spending, whereas people who are sick because theyíre
nearing the end of their life are not spending at all, or rather to put it in another way,
the government is spending money on them keeping them alive in this poor state of health when
theyíre not actually contributing any wealth to society.
Thatís the key point.
Douglas Goldstein: So your feeling is that these people would then be able to continue
earning and spending and just keep the economy rolling?
Dr. Aubrey de Grey: Yes.
Letís look it in a couple of ways.
First of all, letís look at the situation with regards to what they would spend money
on.
The fact is that at the moment, the vast majority of medical expenditure in developed world
countries is spent on people who are suffering from the diseases and disabilities of old
age, and if those diseases and disabilities donít happen then thatís a lot of money
saved.
Some of the money in question would need to be spent to actually provide that preventative
medicine in the first place, but prevention is better than cure and itís much cheaper
than cure.
Douglas Goldstein: Itís not that diseases donít happen.
Itís simply that they would happen when the person is 100 or 120.
Dr. Aubrey de Grey: No, it really is that the diseases donít happen, no matter how
long the person lives.
And of course, itís not just the direct cost.
Itís also the indirect cost.
Think about all of the money thatís lost because of the low productivity of the loved
ones of the elderly - the kids, for example, who have to spend time looking after their
parents when they could be earning.
The actual amount of money that it costs people as the result of not having these therapies
is enormous, so when these therapies come along, we can be absolutely sure that every
nation that has close to the ability to afford it will provide this therapy free of charge,
irrespective of ability to pay to absolutely everybody who is old enough to need them because
their therapies will pay for themselves very quickly indeed.
Douglas Goldstein: Have you encountered any opposition from governments before your research
is successful because they might be concerned that they would have to be supporting an even
larger population from before?
Iím presuming that your answer is no, and that they in fact would welcome this because
there would be more productive citizens?
Dr. Aubrey de Grey: Unfortunately, at this point, itís not quite that good.
It should be exactly how you just said.
But at the moment, there are a couple of problems.
The first problem is that these therapies are in the future and therefore at this point,
we donít know how far in the future, and governments arenít very good at evaluating
things that donít yet exist and whose time frame for existing is not yet clear.
The second thing is that governments obviously are, as you say, focused on getting reelected
and therefore their main interest is in responding to public opinion.
And at this point, public opinion is a little bit complicated in respect of this sort of
longevity.
What weíre seeing today is a massive crisis across the entire developed world in relation
to pensions because people are living longer than they were anticipated to live at the
time that the state pension age of 65 was first instituted.
So when governments come along and they say, ìWell, weíd better really raise the pension
age so that we can make everything balanced again,î then thereís great resistance on
the part of society, even though the ultimate reason why pensions were put in place in the
first place was because we are very sorry for people who are about to die, but at this
point people who are 65 are not about to die.
The whole moral contract so to speak that led to the existence of the pensions from
age 65 in the first place is no longer valid.
But society doesnít seem to be thinking that way, and that makes it very hard for government.
Douglas Goldstein: Is the discussion weíre having now very academic, or is this something
that you, I, or our children will really see?
Dr. Aubrey de Grey: My view is that itís not academic at all.
First of all, I think these therapies have at least a 50/50 chance of actually coming
into existence and being available within the next few decades within the next 25 years
so thatís certainly within the time frame of the lifespans of the people who are alive
today, but also, and I think this is the critical thing, the economic aspects of all of this
revolve around the choices that people make, the priorities of people have and the way
people think about their future.
Thatís going to be determined, and thatís going to change as a result, not when these
therapies actually arrive but rather when work happens in the laboratory typically in
mice, that scientists in general, and not just me, talk about on camera in an amount
that leads people to realize that these therapies are coming.
When these therapies became widely anticipated, thatís when the real pandemonium is going
to happen.
Thatís probably going to be less than 10 years away.
Itís absolutely not too soon at all for anyone who works in banking or in pensions, or in
insurance or anything like that to be seriously planning for this to happen.
What I would say is that you can tell people is that on the balance of probability, and
of course itís all about probability because we donít know the actual time frames, people
who are now letís say 20s or 30s can forget about saving any of their income because theyíre
not going to have to retire because theyíre not going to get sick however long they live.
This is not me just being overoptimistic.
This is how things are likely to be on the basis of where this biomedical technology
currently and the rate in which it
is advancing.
This is the strength of the financial community, the financial planning community, whether
itís insurance, pensions or whatever.
All of you are very familiar with working with probabilities, about the future that
are unknown.
This is something that the general public is extraordinarily bad at, but you guys are
professional at that.
Youíre paid to do it so itís precisely your community that is best placed to objectively
evaluate the likely scenarios in the next decade, or two or three, and to forward plan
accordingly to make sure that everyoneís prepared.
Douglas Goldstein, CFPÆ, is the director of Profile Investment Services and the host
of the Goldstein on Gelt radio show (Monday nights at 7:00 PM on www.israelnationalradio.com.
He is a licensed financial professional both in the U.S. and Israel.
Securities offered through Portfolio Resources Group, Inc., Member FINRA, SIPC, MSRB, NFA,
SIFMA.
Accounts carried by National Financial Services LLC.
Member NYSE/SIPC, a Fidelity Investments company.
His book Building Wealth in Israel is available in bookstores, on the web, or can be ordered
at: www.profile-financial.com (02) 624-2788 or (03) 524-0942.
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