Amazingly, the life expectancy in the Western world will exceed 90 years by 2030 – a number that is based on data from the World Health Organization recently published in the Lancet.

This prognosis is in sync with the progress of steadily improving healthcare we have observed in recent decades. The longest live expectancy likely to occur is in South Korea, followed by France, Spain, and Japan, with women living longer than men. Not surprisingly, countries leading this trend are those with populations of lower body-mass index, lower overall blood pressure, lower smoking incidences in women, and those displaying broad-based improvements in economic status and expanded access to health care, combined with facilitated rapid adoption and scale-up of new medical technologies. The increased longevity will have a big impact on our society as a whole, and will require thoughtful planning in critical areas such as social services, pension, and of course health services.

While the critical contributions of lifestyle choices and access to good health care are undeniable, it is likewise clear that our genetic background and the deeper understanding of disease prevention and therapy are key contributors to longevity and aging. Today, with better tools to diagnose cancer early, and ongoing investments into life-saving discoveries and therapies, we are starting to see signs of success of turning a deadly disease into a manageable chronic condition. In parallel, we are starting to understand how genetics is affecting our lives and how we can modulate external influences to prevent disease establishment.

Interested to learn more and dive deeper? Don’t miss out! PMWC 2017 Duke which has an exciting session planned around aging, wellness, and longevity with a talk by Brad Perkins, Human Longevity on the Approach to Understanding and Enhancing Human Longevity:

This session which is chaired by Dr. Brad Perkins, CMO at Human Longevity, focuses on the analysis of comprehensive databases of whole genome, metabolomics, microbiome, phenotype data, integrated health records, and clinical data combined with large scale computing and machine learning which has the potential to lead to novel discoveries that will revolutionize the practice of medicine, and enhance human longevity.

Aging, longevity, and wellness was echoed through our recent PMWC 2017 Silicon Valley conference:

• Lee Hood (Providence Health): “Big data and quantifying wellness will/is transforming healthcare through scientific wellness”
• Jennifer Lovejoy (Arivale): “The secret to wellness is science” and “Scientific wellness is a new industry”
• @cacanaria: “Keep people healthy and address wellness to reduce illness”