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E, Le Bourg

doi:10.1023/a:1010021302608

Biogerontology

2000

DOI: 10.1023/a:1010021302608

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Le Bourg E

Abstract: Gerontology research is now of high concern, particularly to the media, and a risk could exist that gerontologists may give people false hopes or premature conclusions. This article describes two examples: the hypothesis that median longevity will be 150 years in 2100, and the recent results on telomerase. It is concluded that it is prudent for gerontologists to maintain a cautious attitude with the media.

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Cited by 15 publications

References 18 publications

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Contentious terminology and complicated cartography of anti-aging medicine

Mykytyn

2006

Biogerontology

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Serving as an introduction to the cultural significance of the contemporary emergence of anti-aging medicine, this article outlines some of the distinctions and controversies regarding the usage of the term "anti-aging medicine." By sketching out the complex field of researchers, practitioners, organizations, companies it is clear that "anti-aging medicine" is a highly contentious term that means different things to different groups. Thus, analysis demands a keen attention to contextualizing its usage. However, despite the critically important distinctions in how "anti-aging medicine" is used and what it connotes both to the user and the audience, the core principle of anti-aging is the notion that aging can be targeted for biomedical intervention. It is the orientation toward this explicit goal that marks anti-aging medicine. While neither advocating for/against anti-aging medicine nor excavating the large body of biological literature, this ethnographically researched article explicates the cultural use of "anti-aging medicine" and maps out its main varieties, controversies, stakes, and challenges.

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Contentious terminology and complicated cartography of anti-aging medicine

Mykytyn

2006

Biogerontology

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Professional and personal attitudes of researchers in ageing towards life extension

2008

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It is often assumed that there is broad public support for strong life extension research (i.e. research aimed at the dramatic extension of human life beyond the current maximum), and that there would be a near universal interest in using any life extending technologies that this research may produce. In this paper we report the opinions of researchers in ageing on the controversial promise of life extension, and compare these views. This paper describes the professional attitudes, personal interest and concerns expressed by Australian and international researchers in ageing (n = 14) as expressed during semi-structured, in-depth interviews. Researchers held varying opinions about the possibility of significantly extending human life. Some saw a limit to the extension of human life, while others did not. Some felt that research into the fundamental ageing process was a priority; others did not. Researchers tended to weigh up the potential risks and benefits of life extension with most expressing a personal interest in life extension that was contingent on the technology providing a good quality of life. Some participants were not interested in the prospect of life extension for personal reasons, because they felt the potential risks outweighed the potential benefits, or because life extension raised issues of justice and equity.

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Anti-Aging is not Necessarily Anti-Death: Bioethics and the Front Lines of Practice

Mykytyn

2009

Medicine Studies

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Anti-aging medicine has emerged in the past two decades as both a medical practice and scientific objective largely aimed at intervening into the process of aging itself rather than its ''associated'' diseases. This has provoked a both excitement and concern in bioethical deliberations on the meaning and potential impact of an effective intervention. In this article, I examine the different ways in which bioethicists, other social scientists, and anti-aging proponents frame anti-aging goals, in particular, the construction of immortality as its implicit and explicit aim. This research is based upon over 9 years of anthropological, ethnographic interview-and observation-based research in the field and draws substantially from the US President's Council on Bioethics' deliberations on this topic as well as from interview data and other publications/discussion on anti-aging medicine. I argue that while the framework of life and death provide the primary structure for many bioethical and social science critiques of anti-aging medicine, many if not most anti-aging practitioners, researchers, and advocates employ the alternative structure of health and pain to orient their work. These divergent orientations of life/death and health/ pain beget competing conversations around antiaging medicine; including voices from the front lines of anti-aging practice complicate bioethical critiques and ultimately beg different questions. Positioning the painful, physiological decline of aging as the ultimate adversary rather than death challenges traditional models of biomedical intervention based on ''nature'' and ''disease'' constructions.

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Untitled

Cited by 15 publications

References 18 publications

Contentious terminology and complicated cartography of anti-aging medicine

Contentious terminology and complicated cartography of anti-aging medicine

Professional and personal attitudes of researchers in ageing towards life extension

Anti-Aging is not Necessarily Anti-Death: Bioethics and the Front Lines of Practice

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