A History of Ideas about the Prolongation of Life: The Evolution of Prolongevity Hypotheses to 1800

Gruman, Gerald J.

doi:10.2307/1006096

Cited by 101 publications

(36 citation statements)

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“…Aging and death go hand in hand and with the moral significance attributed to mortality, so are aging and dying morally vital aspects of the human experience. Despite the fact that the impulse for immortality is deeply human (Gruman 1966(Gruman [2003Mitchell 2004: 162;Roughley 2000) and our biomedical and scientific activity is largely directed at the prevention of death (Cole 1991;Gruman 1966Gruman [2003; Kass 2004; Moreira and Palladino 2008;Vincent 2006), we are, in a word, ''mortals'' (PCBE 2003a).…”

Section: Death and Agingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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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Section: Death and Agingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Mykytyn

2009

Medicine Studies

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“…Proposed methods vary from exercise to ingesting vitamins to meditation. These are ideas that generally have very long histories (Gruman, 1966), and have had negligible success. The best-motivated ''home remedy'' for aging is probably caloric restriction, a practice that substantially postpones rodent aging (e.g., Masoro, 1988) and has been pushed hard for humans as well (Walford and Weindrich, 1988).…”

Section: Future Of the Human Lifespanmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolution of human lifespan: Past, future, and present

Rose

Mueller

1998

Am. J. Hum. Biol.

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“…Within this model the maintenance of good health and the pursuit of a long life depended upon a harmonious balance between humours and elements (cf. also Gruman 1966).…”

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confidence: 99%

Anti-Aging and Biomedicine: Critical Studies on the Pursuit of Maintaining, Revitalizing and Enhancing Aging Bodies

Kampf

Botelho

2009

Medicine Studies

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Anti-aging, the idea that medical or quasi-medical concepts can intervene in the aging process to slow, stop, or even reverse the process of growing old, has become a popular and scientific buzz-word throughout the Western world. This special issue focuses specifically on biomedicine and its relation to anti-aging cultures by contextualising this complex topic through an interdisciplinary approach that draws upon ethics, cultural anthropology, sociology, and history to offer a new understanding of biomedicine as a social and cultural practice as it engages with Western society's quest for longevity. Emphasising the historical and sociocultural context of the way anti-aging movements have constructed aging bodies and the aging process, a number of key themes are identified: the competing definitions of old age within biomedicine, medicalisation of old age, the ethics of the anti-aging market, and the contested nature of anti-aging as a legitimate field of gerontology. Suggestions for further research areas for the study of anti-aging medicine and its role in western society are developed, specifically: the need to contrast the science and biomedicine of antiaging with those who are experiencing this ''targeted'' age, paying closer attention to the different stages of old age and to the gender dynamic involved, considering the social and economic differences found amongst the elderly, and analysing the role of the media in forming and shaping antiaging and biomedicine discourses. The papers in this special issue illustrate the multifaceted nature of anti-aging in the field of biomedicine and its related shifting of the meaning of old age.

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A History of Ideas about the Prolongation of Life: The Evolution of Prolongevity Hypotheses to 1800

Cited by 101 publications

References 0 publications

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

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

Evolution of human lifespan: Past, future, and present

Anti-Aging and Biomedicine: Critical Studies on the Pursuit of Maintaining, Revitalizing and Enhancing Aging Bodies

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