New model of health promotion and disease prevention for the 21st century

doi:10.1136/bmj.a399

Published 8 July 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a399
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a399

Analysis

New model of health promotion and disease prevention for the 21st century

Robert N Butler, president ¹, Richard A Miller, professor ², Daniel Perry, executive director³, Bruce A Carnes, professor⁴, T Franklin Williams, professor emeritus⁵, Christine Cassel, president⁶, Jacob Brody, professor⁷, Marie A Bernard, professor⁴, Linda Partridge, director ⁸, Thomas Kirkwood, director⁹, George M Martin, scientific director¹⁰, S Jay Olshansky, professor ⁷

¹ International Longevity Center, New York, USA , ² University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA , ³ Alliance for Aging Research, Washington, DC, USA , ⁴ University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma City, OK, USA, ⁵ University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, Rochester, NY, USA, ⁶ American Board of Internal Medicine, Philadelphia, PA, USA, ⁷ University of Illinois at Chicago, 1603 West Taylor Street, Chicago, IL 60612, USA , ⁸ Institute of Healthy Ageing, University College London, London, ⁹ Institute for Ageing and Health, Newcastle University, Newcastle, ¹⁰ American Federation for Aging Research, Seattle, WA, USA

Correspondence to: S J Olshansky sjayo@uic.edu

Analysis, doi: 10.1136/bmj.a414

Our susceptibility to disease increases as we grow older. RobertButler and colleagues argue that interventions to slow downageing could therefore have much greater benefit than thosetargeted at individual disease

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Many countries now have ageing populations and are facing anincreased prevalence of age related diseases and escalatinghealthcare costs. However, if ageing is combined with extendedyears of healthy life, it could also produce unprecedented social,economic, and health dividends. In recent decades, scientistshave shown that the underlying biological processes of ageing,which give rise to most diseases and other age related healthproblems, can be delayed. We argue that a concerted effort toslow ageing would provide a broad strategy for primary preventionthat would greatly enhance and accelerate improvements in healthat all ages.

Rise of human longevity

Life expectancy at birth rose by a remarkable 30 years in developedcountries during the 20th century, initially because of reductionsin infant, child, and maternal mortality and then because ofdeclining mortality in middle and old age.¹ ² In 1900, about40% of babies born in countries for which reliable data existed. . . [Full text of this article]

Diminishing returns from disease specific model

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