In the last century, the average human life expectancy doubled. Here’s a roadmap to the innovations that could help us do it again — maybe.
Possible in 0-5 years
Life-Extending Supplements
A compound known as alpha-ketoglutarate extends life span in female mice and health span in mice of both sexes. A trial is testing its effects on markers of aging in humans.
Healthful Living Through Chemistry
Obesity can take more than 10 years off life expectancy, and semaglutide, a drug that could soon be approved for weight loss, is about twice as effective as current medications.
Superpowering the Cell’s Generator
Elamipretide, a drug that helps restore function to flagging mitochondria, the cells’ power plants, is awaiting F.D.A. approval as a treatment for a rare mitochondrial disease.
The Normalizing of Masks
Maintaining widespread mask-wearing practices could result in a long-lasting drop in influenza deaths, which numbered 12,000 to 61,000 annually in the United States in the decade before the pandemic.
Supercentenarian Sequencing
Further decoding and analyzing the genomes of those who live to be 110 or older could provide useful insights into what accounts for their longevity.
Safer Childbirth for Black Mothers
A bill in Congress targets, in part, a disparity in which Black women in the United States are about three times as likely as white women to die during the period including pregnancy, childbirth and the first year postpartum.
Mighty Miniproteins
A compound similar to MOTS-c — a micropeptide that boosts physical fitness, prevents obesity and increases healthy life span in mice — is in human trials and could be approved within four years.
Priming Cancer Immunity
New ways to mobilize the immune system against cancer and fresh combinations of existing treatments will bring the immunotherapy revolution to a wider variety of hard-to-treat cancers.
Shining a Light on Alzheimer’s
Devices that stimulate the brain using specific frequencies of light and sound might help treat Alzheimer’s disease and other causes of cognitive decline.
mRNA Vaccines Come for Cancers
Vaccines that exploit mRNA technology, which found proof of concept with Covid-19, are in the pipeline for melanomas, colorectal cancer, prostate cancer, breast cancer and more.
Reducing Child Pneumonia Deaths
Respiratory infections kill some 750,000 children under age 5 each year. The W.H.O. and UNICEF hope to reach their target of fewer than three deaths per 1,000 births through vaccination, breastfeeding, access to quality health care and reduced pollution.
By Nicholas St. Fleur, Chloe Williams and Charlie Wood – April 27, 2021
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