Keeping the elderly around longer is also good for business: the business of the human race. Seniors represent a repository of wisdom. It is a shame and tragedy for people to die at just the time they are at the apogee of their accumulated knowledge. It seems ironic to allow people to accumulate knowledge over the course of a lifetime and then cut them down at their pinnacle and allow this wisdom be lost to the cemetery plot or ‘‘go up in smoke’’ on the funeral pyre. It is in the best interest of a modern, technological society to keep the elderly alive and vibrant and to make use of their vast collective knowledge base. This is the so-called ‘‘grandmother hypothesis’’ in which ‘‘older individuals specifically retain the ability to preserve their knowledge base that allows them to focus on transmitting to children knowledge accumulated over generations.’’5 This is modern evolution at its finest, and by utilizing the intellectual resources of our seniors more effectively, we will be able to evolve even more quickly. But we must keep our bodies (and minds) in our senior years in good condition to accomplish this.
In most cases, people can achieve this goal of remaining healthy until very late in life. The knowledge to do so exists today. Chronic disease does not happen overnight. While the overt clinical manifestation of a disease may appear suddenly, most of the disease processes that constitute the leading causes of death, such as cancer, heart disease, kidney failure, etc. are almost always decades in the making. We now have the ability to assess where we are personally in the progression of these processes and, with this knowledge, take sensible and effective and preventive action to halt and reverse the lethal march towards disease, disability and death. Effective testing is the key; uncovering incubating disease processes and curing them before symptoms appear and it is too late.
The leading cause of death in the United States is coronary heart disease. Yet, 50 per cent of men and 64 per cent of women discover they have heart disease by suffering a fatal heart attack. This means that half of men and almost two-thirds of women with heart disease receive no warning symptoms such as chest pain people before succumbing to a fatal myocardial infarction.6 By aggressively utilizing non-invasive diagnostic testing available today, many people could take effective, preventive action before suffering a myocardial infarction. The second leading cause of death is cancer, but, all too often, cancer is not detected until after it has metastasized and then is very difficult to treat. The same applies to strokes, the third leading cause of death. Strokes typically come on without warning, all too often resulting in permanent damage.
But, it does not need to be this way. By aggressively applying the medical knowledge we have today, people can assess where they are in the progression of disease and take effective action to halt and reverse the disease process before irreversible damage occurs.
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