Category: Aging

Yale Economist Says Stagnant Japan Would Benefit from Mass Suicide of Elder Citizens

A growing number of so-called “progressives” are advocating an end to economic growth. I do not believe that most of them understand how much more suffering and death the world will experience if their advocacy succeeds. (I remember decades ago seeing a beautiful but troubling Japanese movie with my friend Hajime Miyazaki, in which the loving, aging matron of a starving family was willingly carried up a mountain by one of her sons and left there so the other members of her family would have more to eat.)

(p. A1) In interviews and public appearances, Yusuke Narita, an assistant professor of economics at Yale, has taken on the question of how to deal with the burdens of Japan’s rapidly aging society.

“I feel like the only solution is pretty clear,” he said during one online news program in late 2021. “In the end, isn’t it mass suicide and mass ‘seppuku’ of the elderly?” Seppuku is an act of ritual disembowelment that was a code among dishonored samurai in the 19th century.

. . .

(p. A10) Given Japan’s low birthrate and the highest public debt in the developed world, policymakers increasingly worry about how to fund Japan’s expanding pension obligations.

. . .

In Japanese folklore, families carry older relatives to the top of mountains or remote corners of forests and leave them to die.

. . .

In broaching euthanasia, Dr. Narita has spoken publicly of his mother, who had an aneurysm when he was 19. In an interview with a website where families can search for nursing homes, Dr. Narita described how even with insurance and government financing, his mother’s care cost him 100,000 yen — or about $760 — a month.

For the full story, see:

Motoko Rich and Hikari Hida. “Scholar Suggests Mass Suicide for Japan’s Old. Does He Mean It?” The New York Times (Monday, Feb. 13, 2023): A1 & A10.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date Feb. 12, 2023, and has the title “A Yale Professor Suggested Mass Suicide for Old People in Japan. What Did He Mean?”)

As People Die of “Old Age” Will the FDA Ever Approve Longevity Drugs?

The FDA has required that new drugs be proven to be effective against a disease, and the FDA has refused to consider old age to be a disease. Perhaps as more government institutions give “old age” as the reason for a death, the FDA will reconsider.

(p. A6) LONDON — Queen Elizabeth II died of “old age,” according to her death certificate, which was released on Thursday by the registrar general of Scotland. The certificate, which lists her occupation as Her Majesty the Queen, also notes that the queen died at 3:10 p.m. on Sept. 8 [2022] at Balmoral Castle.

The first fact is indisputable, given that the queen was 96. But the report offers no further details about the cause of her death, which came two days after she was photographed standing and smiling as she greeted Britain’s new prime minister, Liz Truss.

For the full story, see:

Mark Landler. “Record Says Queen Died of ‘Old Age’.” The New York Times (Friday, September 30, 2022): A6.

(Note: bracketed year added.]

(Note: the online version of the story has the date Sept. 29, 2022, and has the title “Queen’s Death Certificate Reveals Cause and Time of Death.”)

Heat Deaths Rise Mostly Due to Rise in Fragile Aging Population

(p. A17) One recent and much-cited Lancet report appears deliberately deceptive.

The study offers a frightening statistic: Rapidly rising temperatures have increased annual global heat deaths among older people by 68% in less than two decades. That stark figure has been cited all over, from the BBC and Time to the Washington Post and the Times of India, the world’s largest-selling English-language daily.

. . .

Annual heat deaths have increased significantly among people 65 and older world-wide. The average deaths per year increased 68% from the early 2000s to the late 2010s. But that is almost entirely because there are so many more older people today than there were 20 years ago, in no small part thanks to medical innovations that keep us alive longer. Measured across the same time span the Lancet maps heat deaths, the number of people 65 and older has risen by 60%, or almost as much as heat deaths. When the increase in heat mortality is adjusted for this population growth, the actual rise that can be attributed to rising temperatures is only 5%.

It is hard not to see the Lancet study’s failure to adjust this figure as a deliberate act of deception.

For the full commentary, see:

Bjorn Lomborg. “The Lancet’s ‘Heat Death’ Deception.” The Wall Street Journal (Saturday, November 5, 2022): A17.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date November 4, 2022, and has the title “Climate Change and the Lancet’s ‘Heat Death’ Deception.”)

The “Longevity Under Adversity” of the Bristlecone Pine “Is a Metaphorical Dose of Qualified Hope in an Unstable World”

(p. C9) . . ., trees seem to grow on a timescale humans can comprehend. A seed planted by a child will be largely mature when she is—and will likewise get thicker and wrinklier as it ages. The tree, however, might long outlive her; there’s a reason we use the shape of a tree to chart the chain of human generations.

This intertwining of biology and chronology is the subject of Jared Farmer’s rich but overstuffed “Elderflora: A Modern History of Ancient Trees.”

. . .

Mr. Farmer, raised in Utah, is partial to the Great Basin of the American West, cradle of the oldest living things securely dated: gnarled specimens of bristlecone pine. The coronation of bristlecones in the 1950s followed a few decades of scientific progress. Counting rings had long been the main method of tree dating, one that held an intuitive power even beyond the laboratory. Slices of big trunks marked with purportedly significant dates had become popular exhibits, a way to make time tangible. Scientists at the University of Arizona perfected the trick of combining multiple samples and lining up shared clumps of thick and thin rings—caused by year-to-year variation in climate—to extend the chronology beyond the span of a single specimen.

Using this technique, the pioneering dendrochronologist Edmund Schulman pegged one bristlecone at more than 4,500 years old, announcing his discovery in a National Geographic article whose publication he didn’t live to see. Mr. Farmer chronicles Schulman’s career in novelistic close-third-person narration—one more idiosyncrasy in this fascinating farrago of a book—lingering on Schulman’s coinage “longevity under adversity.” For Schulman, the phrase was a tribute to the bristlecone’s ability to endure extreme conditions through partial death; for Mr. Farmer, it is a metaphorical dose of qualified hope in an unstable world.

For the full review, see:

Timothy Farrington. “Time Made Tangible.” The Wall Street Journal (Saturday, Dec. 3, 2022): C9.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the review has the date December 2, 2022, and has the title “‘Elderflora’ Review: Ancient Trees Grow Among Us.”)

The book under review is:

Farmer, Jared. Elderflora: A Modern History of Ancient Trees. New York: Basic Books, 2022.

Covid-19 Health Effects Will Keep Reducing Labor Force

(p. A1) As the United States emerges from the pandemic, employers have been desperate to hire. But while demand for goods and services has rebounded, the supply of labor has fallen short, holding back the economy.

. . .

(p. A20) Morning Consult found in August [2022] that prime-age adults who aren’t working cited a variety of often overlapping reasons for not wanting jobs. In a monthly poll of 2,200 people, 40 percent said they believed that they wouldn’t be able to find a job with enough flexibility, while 38 percent were limited by family situations and personal obligations. But the biggest category, at 43 percent, was medical conditions.

Other data suggest some of that is due to long-term complications from Covid-19, although estimates of how many people have been knocked out of the work force by Covid range tremendously.

Katie Bach, a Brookings Institution fellow, put the impact at two million to four million full-time workers, based on her interpretation of the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey and other research. (The total affected may be larger, with many who suffer from long Covid reducing their hours rather than stopping work.) A Federal Reserve economist didn’t specify a number, but observed that even as Covid-related hospitalizations and deaths receded, the share of people saying they were not able to work because of illness or disability had remained elevated in Labor Department data after spiking in early 2021.

Another analysis, in a paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, found that people who’d taken a week off for health-related reasons in 2020 and 2021 were 7 percent less likely to be in the labor force a year later — which equates to about 500,000 workers.

Whatever the magnitude, the effects are likely to be significant and long-lasting. Vaccines provide imperfect protection against getting long Covid, studies suggest, and other post-viral diseases have proven difficult to recover from. “I certainly don’t think the worst is behind us,” Ms. Bach said.

For the full story, see:

Lydia DePillis. “Pool of Labor In U.S. Stays Bafflingly Low.” The New York Times (Saturday, September 13, 2022): A1 & A20.

(Note: ellipsis, and bracketed year, added.)

(Note: the online version has the date Sept. 12, 2022, and has the title “Who Are America’s Missing Workers?”)

The NBER paper mentioned above is:

Goda, Gopi Shah, and Evan J. Soltas. “The Impacts of Covid-19 Illnesses on Workers.” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 30435, Sept. 2022.

Stimulating Brain with Electrical Currents Can Improve Long-Term Memory for Older Adults

(p. A5) Zapping the brain with weak electrical currents that mimic normal neural activity can boost memory in healthy older adults, at least over the short term, researchers said in a study published Monday [Aug. 22, 2022] in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

. . .

The researchers found that repeated delivery of low-frequency currents to a brain region known as the parietal cortex—located in the upper back portion of the organ—improved recall of words toward the end of the 20-word lists. When the researchers targeted the prefrontal cortex at the front of the brain with high-frequency currents, the study participants saw improvements in their ability to remember words from the beginning of the lists.

. . .

The electrical stimulation improved both short- and longer-term memory lasting minutes by about 50 to 65 percent over four days of treatment, Dr. Reinhart said. The improvements persisted one month after the treatment sessions. Short-term, or working, memory involves storing information over a period of seconds like remembering a phone number someone just gave you. Long-term memory involves storing and then retrieving information over minutes, days, months or years.

. . .

Though the apparatus used in the experiments is lightweight and easy to use, Dr. Reinhart said, it hasn’t been cleared for clinical use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and for now is available only in research settings.

For the full story see:

Aylin Woodward and Daniela Hernandez. “Electrical Brain Stimulation Is Shown to Boost Memory.” The Wall Street Journal (Tuesday, Aug. 23, 2022): A5.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed date, added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date August 22, 2022, and has the title “Improve Memory by Zapping Your Brain? Study Says It’s Possible.”)

The academic article summarized in the passages quoted above is:

Grover, Shrey, Wen Wen, Vighnesh Viswanathan, Christopher T. Gill, and Robert M. G. Reinhart. “Long-Lasting, Dissociable Improvements in Working Memory and Long-Term Memory in Older Adults with Repetitive Neuromodulation.” Nature Neuroscience 25, no. 9 (Sept. 2022): 1237-46.

Jellyfish Genome Suggests Multiple Pathways Can Synergize to Extend Healthy Lifespans

(p. A3) A team of scientists in Spain has succeeded in mapping the genome of a jellyfish known for its ability to cheat death by rebirthing itself.

. . .

In a study published Monday [Aug. 29, 2022] in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the authors said they hoped their genome mapping might lead to discoveries relevant to human aging and efforts to improve the human healthspan.

. . .

Three types can rejuvenate after adulthood and of those three, only one, the Turritopsis dohrnii, keeps its capacity at 100%, according to the study.

. . .

The scientists compared their genome mapping of T. dohrnii to that of a closely related species that isn’t known to have post-reproductive rejuvenation.

. . .

Dr. Jan Karlseder, a molecular biologist and director of the Glenn Center for Biology of Aging Research at the Salk Institute, said the study contained an important message about extending the healthspan, or healthy years, of an organism.

“The most interesting thing is that it’s not a single molecular pathway . . . It is a combination of many of them,” he said. “If we want to look for an extension of healthspan, we cannot just focus on one pathway. That will not be sufficient. We need to look at many of them and how they synergize.”

For the full story see:

Ginger Adams Otis and Alyssa Lukpat. “Scientists Map the Genome of an ‘Immortal Jellyfish’.” The Wall Street Journal (Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2022): A3.

(Note: ellipses between paragraphs, added; ellipsis within paragraph, in original. Bracketed date added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date August 29, 2022, and has the title “Scientists Move Closer to Unlocking the Secrets of the Immortal Jellyfish, and Possibly Human Aging.”)

Three Cups of Coffee a Day Lowers Risk of Death

(p. D6) That morning cup of coffee may be linked to a lower risk of dying, researchers from a study published Monday [June 6, 2022] in The Annals of Internal Medicine concluded. Those who drank 1.5 to 3.5 cups of coffee per day, even with a teaspoon of sugar, were up to 30 percent less likely to die during the study period than those who didn’t drink coffee. Those who drank unsweetened coffee were 16 to 21 percent less likely to die during the study period, with those drinking about three cups per day having the lowest risk of death when compared with noncoffee drinkers.

Researchers analyzed coffee consumption data collected from the U.K. Biobank, a large medical database with health information from people across Britain. They analyzed demographic, lifestyle and dietary information collected from more than 170,000 people between the ages of 37 and 73 over a median follow-up period of seven years. The mortality risk remained lower for people who drank both decaffeinated and caffeinated coffee. The data was inconclusive for those who drank coffee with artificial sweeteners.

“It’s huge. There are very few things that reduce your mortality by 30 percent,” said Dr. Christina Wee, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a deputy editor of the scientific journal where the study was published. Dr. Wee edited the study and published a corresponding editorial in the same journal.

. . .

The study showed that the benefits of coffee tapered off for people who drank more than 4.5 cups of coffee each day.

For the full story see:

Dani Blum. “Have a Cup of Coffee. It Could Extend Your Life.” The New York Times (Tuesday, June 7, 2022): D6.

(Note: ellipsis, and bracketed date, added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date June 1, 2022, and has the title “Coffee Drinking Linked to Lower Mortality Risk, New Study Finds.” Where there are minor differences in wording between the versions, the passages quoted above follow the online version.)

The academic article summarized in the passages quoted above is:

Liu, Dan, Zhi-Hao Li, Dong Shen, Pei-Dong Zhang, Wei-Qi Song, Wen-Ting Zhang, Qing-Mei Huang, Pei-Liang Chen, Xi-Ru Zhang, and Chen Mao. “Association of Sugar-Sweetened, Artificially Sweetened, and Unsweetened Coffee Consumption with All-Cause and Cause-Specific Mortality.” Annals of Internal Medicine 175, no. 7 (July 2022): 909-17.

Cerebrospinal Fluid From Young Mice Improves the Memories of Old Mice

(p. D3) Five years ago, Tal Iram, a young neuroscientist at Stanford University, approached her supervisor with a daring proposal: She wanted to extract fluid from the brain cavities of young mice and to infuse it into the brains of older mice, testing whether the transfers could rejuvenate the aging rodents.

. . .

Dr. Iram persevered, working for a year just to figure out how to collect the colorless liquid from mice. On Wednesday [May 11, 2022], she reported the tantalizing results in the journal Nature: A week of infusions of young cerebrospinal fluid improved the memories of older mice.

. . .

Cerebrospinal fluid made for a logical target for researchers interested in aging. It nourishes brain cells, and its composition changes with age. Unlike blood, the fluid sits close to the brain.

But for years, scientists saw the fluid largely as a way of recording changes associated with aging, rather than countering its effects. Tests of cerebrospinal fluid, for example, have helped to identify levels of abnormal proteins in patients with significant memory loss who went on to develop Alzheimer’s disease.

. . .

“This is a very cool study that looks scientifically solid to me,” said Matt Kaeberlein, a biologist who studies aging at the University of Washington and was not involved in the research. “This adds to the growing body of evidence that it’s possible, perhaps surprisingly easy, to restore function in aged tissues by targeting the mechanisms of biological aging.”

Dr. Iram tried to determine how the young cerebrospinal fluid was helping to preserve memory by analyzing the hippocampus, a portion of the brain dedicated to memory formation and storage. Treating the old mice with the fluid, she found, had a strong effect on cells that act as precursors to oligodendrocytes, which produce layers of fat known as myelin that insulate nerve fibers and ensure strong signal connections between neurons.

The authors of the study homed in on a particular protein in the young cerebrospinal fluid that appeared involved in setting off the chain of events that led to stronger nerve insulation. Known as fibroblast growth factor 17, or FGF17, the protein could be infused into older cerebrospinal fluid and could partially replicate the effects of young fluid, the study found.

Even more strikingly, blocking the protein in young mice appeared to impair their brain function, offering stronger evidence that FGF17 affects cognition and changes with age.

. . .

But Dr. Wyss-Coray said that the study filled a critical gap in the understanding of how the brain’s environment changes as people age.

“The question is, ‘How can you maintain cognitive health until you die? How can you make the brain resilient to this relentless degeneration of the body?’” he said, “and what a growing number of studies show is that as we learn more about the aging process itself, maybe we can slow down aspects of aging and maintain tissue integrity or even rejuvenate tissues.”

For the full story, see:

Benjamin Mueller. “A Step Toward Refreshing Memory.” The New York Times (Tuesday, May 17, 2022): D3.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed date, added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date May 11, 2022, and has the title “Spinal Fluid From Young Mice Sharpened Memories of Older Rodents.”)

The academic article in Nature that reports the results discussed in the passages quoted above is:

Iram, Tal, Fabian Kern, Achint Kaur, Saket Myneni, Allison R. Morningstar, Heather Shin, Miguel A. Garcia, Lakshmi Yerra, Robert Palovics, Andrew C. Yang, Oliver Hahn, Nannan Lu, Steven R. Shuken, Michael S. Haney, Benoit Lehallier, Manasi Iyer, Jian Luo, Henrik Zetterberg, Andreas Keller, J. Bradley Zuchero, and Tony Wyss-Coray. “Young CSF Restores Oligodendrogenesis and Memory in Aged Mice Via Fgf17.” Nature 605, no. 7910 (May 19, 2022): 509-15.

“Don’t Give Up and Say There’s No Point”

(p. A18) TOKYO—The world’s oldest verified living person, Kane Tanaka of Japan, has died at age 119.

. . .

According to Japanese news accounts, Ms. Tanaka loved chocolate and carbonated drinks and hoped to live to 120. Her motto was “Don’t give up and say there’s no point. Live with all your heart.”

For the full story, see:

Chieko Tsuneoka. “World’s Oldest Person Dies at 119.” The Wall Street Journal (Tuesday, April 26, 2022): A18.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

(Note: the online version of the story was updated April 25, 2022, and has the title “World’s Oldest Person, Japan’s Kane Tanaka, Dies at 119.” The print version has a longer first sentence than the online version, which is quoted above.)

Art Diamond Discusses “Policy Hurdles in the Fight Against Aging” on Caleb Brown’s Cato Daily Podcast

Caleb Brown, of the Cato Institute, posted an interview with me yesterday (May 27, 2022) on his “Cato Daily Podcast.” The topic, “Policy Hurdles in the Fight against Aging,” is related to a chapter in my book-in-progress on medical entrepreneurship that is to be entitled Less Costs, More Cures: Unbinding Medical Entrepreneurs.