"Coping with Methuselah" book review

From: Leonid Gavrilov (lagavril_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 06/29/04 

Date: 29 Jun 2004 12:29:42 -0700

Greetings,

I would greatly appreciate any feedback from the members of this Group
to the first draft of my short book review "COPING WITH METHUSELAH"
(see below).

This book review was commissioned to me by "The New England Journal
of Medicine" with a strict 700-word limit, and an understanding that
it should be written for a medical audience.

Any comments and suggestions (including editing advice) would be
greatly appreciated.

Thank you !

Kind regards,

-- Leonid Gavrilov
Author of the book "The Biology of Life Span"
 http://longevity-science.org/index.html#Book

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

COPING WITH METHUSELAH:
THE IMPACT OF MOLECULAR BIOLOGY ON MEDICINE AND SOCIETY

Edited by Henry J. Aaron and William B. Schwartz.
296 pp., illustrated. Washington, D.C., Brookings Institution Press,
2004.
$48.95 (cloth); $19.95 (paper). ISBN 0-8157-0040-7 (cloth);
0-8157-0039-3 (paper)

This book is about the future of human lifespan, the possibility of a
longevity revolution in the 21st century (significant life extension),
and the social consequences of living much longer lives than we live
today.

The book is a product of the collaborative efforts of 17 scholars,
including three medical scientists (Drs. William B. Schwartz, John T.
Potts, Alan M. Garber), a large team of economists, one ethicist
(Alexander Capron, University of Southern California) and a journalist
(Nicholas Wade, New York Times).

One could imagine that it would take a lot of effort to reach a
consensus among 17 experts on the highly uncertain future of human
longevity, and the social implications of life extension.

Indeed, to transform the diversity of expert opinions into a coherent
book, two prior meetings with discussions among the future authors
were organized: first, a planning meeting held at Stanford University
in California in 2001, followed by a conference held at the Brookings
Institution in Washington, DC in 2002.

In addition to these efforts to harmonize the experts' opinions, six
of the seven book chapters are accompanied by detailed comments
written by another expert (most probably a former discussant and
opponent at the earlier meetings), which makes this book particularly
interesting and useful reading.

The book clearly consists of two parts: one, which is easy to read,
and which really deserves to be read widely; and another, more
specialized part written mostly by economists, which may be
particularly useful for policy makers.

In my opinion, the most readable part of this book, which deserves to
be read by everybody, is its 15-page Introduction, which nicely
summarizes the major ideas and findings of this volume, and clearly
spells out that we may be on the brink of a longevity revolution.

Henry J. Aaron, a senior fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings
Institution, and William B. Schwartz, M.D. a professor of medicine at
the University of Southern California, conclude their book
introduction with the following statement:

"We think that the scenario addressed in this book -- a world in which
living to a hundred or even beyond will one day be common if not
typical -- is a reasonable extrapolation of the revolution in
molecular biology that is only now gaining momentum."

For skeptics, who believe that this scenario represents overly
optimistic wishful thinking, it may be interesting to read a recent
review of this book published in the scientific journal "PLoS
Biology", 2004, 2(6); 723-726
(http://www.plosbiology.org/plosonline/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.0020187).
 Interestingly enough, the book is criticized in that review for being
too pessimistic, and not considering opportunities for a much more
dramatic life extension. Thus the scenario presented in this book is
in fact a moderate vision of the future, compared to other scenarios
currently discussed in the scientific literature.

The next easy-to-read and enjoyable part of the book is Chapter 1,
"The Impact of the Revolution in Biomedical Research on Life
Expectancy by 2050," written by John T. Potts, M.D. from the
Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard University in collaboration
with William B. Schwartz. This chapter, followed by useful
reinforcing comments by Nicholas Wade, explains in plain words what an
arsenal of scientific methods and techniques we already have, which
makes many scientists believe that healthy life-extension is not a
fantasy any longer, but rather a feasible scientific project.

This chapter is written for a wide readership including lay persons,
and may therefore be considered somewhat simplistic by some experts.
Indeed the recent review of this book published by the "EMBO Reports",
2004, 5(6): 559, states that in this chapter, "almost every issue is
dealt with superficially." Still, this chapter is a good starter for
the general public, and those who wish to study the subject in more
depth are fortunate to have this opportunity now, thanks to the recent
publication of a related book, "Strategies for Engineered Negligible
Senescence: Why Genuine Control of Aging May Be Foreseeable," in the
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 2004, vol. 1019.

The rest of the book, written mostly by economists, addresses
different aspects of a crucial question: "Can we afford longevity?"
This is a complex issue, which is not easy to read for
non-specialists. In short, the conclusion could be made that
life-extension will not necessarily lead to economic disaster and
bankruptcy of the social support systems, if the society is properly
prepared for the forthcoming longevity revolution.

I believe that any student entering the medical profession will
benefit from reading at least the Introduction and the first chapter
of this book.

Leonid Gavrilov, Ph.D.

Center on Aging
NORC at the University of Chicago
Chicago, IL 60637-2745

Word count: 754
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