quotes on ageing and ageism

Voices

Quotes not to miss

Growing Old

 
“Ageing is a failure of maintenance and repair”
Eric Verdin, President, The Buck Institute for Research on Aging

“15 years extension to human life is the minimum we should expect”.
David Sinclair. Co-Director of the Paul F Glenn Centre for the Biology of Ageing Research at the Harvard Medical School.
 
"No one is going to fund a 50 year clinical trial . The development of the COVID vaccines legitimized the use of surrogate markers for clinical trials” 
Nir Barzilai. Founding Director, Institute for Ageing Research, Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
 
“Ageing is not yet defined as a disease. No one is going to fund a 20 year clinical trial of efficacy. We need to have surrogate measures such as the epigenetic clock or inflammation age”. 
Eric Verdin President the Buck Institute for Research on Ageing
 
"Today dementia treatment is like starting cancer treatment with a patient who already has a large tumour”.
David Cameron. Ex UK Prime Minister, President of Alzheimer’s Research UK, Chairman of E.D.o.N “Early Detection of Neuro-degenerative disease”
 

“It’s fascinating to realize that only a quarter how you age is genetically determined”
Scott & Gratton 2020

“There needs to be an adjustment for age inflation- just as each year inflation means a dollar buys less, so age inflation means that over time a chronological year accounts for less ageing”
Scott & Gratton 2020
 

“For every year we age we only approach death by nine months.”
Oeppen & Vaupel (2002)
 

“Over the course of the 20th century, Americans became 96 percent less likely to be killed in a car accident, 88 percent less likely to be mowed down on the sidewalk, 99 percent less likely to die in a plane crash, 59 percent less likely to fall to their deaths, 93 percent less likely to die in a fire, 90 percent less likely to drown, 92 percent less likely to be asphyxiated , and 95 percent less likely to be killed on the job”
 
Pinker S. , 2018

“The incidence of US automotive deaths have declined forty-fold since 1921. This is a remarkable reduction given that miles driven has increased over two hundred-fold since then”.
 
S. Pinker, 2018

Living Longer

“The majority of babies born since 2000 will live to be 100”
 
Laura Carstensen, The Longevity Forum 2018

“My granddaughter will be four years old next week. If medical science continues to improve at its current rate, she will live to be 103. More precisely, half of her generation will still be alive at 103”
 
John Bateson

A 20 year Old today has more chance of having a living grandmother than their 100 years ago selves had a chance of living mother”
 
Laura Carstensen at the Longevity Forum 2018

After having lived, loved and struggled for a whole decade, the average person in Kenya had not lost a single year of their remaining lifetime. Everyone got ten years older, yet death had not come a step closer".
 
Norberg, J 2016. Page 40 of "Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future".

“Science is showing that while chronological aging is inevitable, biological aging is malleable. There is a part that you can fight, and we are getting closer and closer to winning that fight.”
 
Eric Verdin, CEO the Buck Institute for the Study of Aging

“We tacked all these extra years on at the end and only old age got longer”
 
Laura Carstensen speaking at the Longevity Forum 2018

“In 2020 there were 240 individuals over the age of 100 that still held a valid UK driving licence”. 
 
Department of Motor Vehicles
 
“Societies were designed when people’s life expectancy was half what it is today”.  
 
Linda Fried (Columbia University). Co-author of the National Academy of Medicines “Global Roadmap for Healthy Ageing”.

Fertility

 
“It is more likely that a woman will have a child over 40 than under 20”
 
Andrew Scott, Professor London Business School

“A Woman is born with all the eggs she will ever have”
Shanna Swan, Count Down 2022
 
Eggs cannot be replaced. That may be 1 or 2 million when she is born but they die and by puberty she will be down to 300,000. At 37 she is down to 37,000. As women age, egg quality as well as numbers declines. Inappropriate behaviours reduce the egg reserve further.

“by 2045 we will have a median sperm count of zero”
 
Shanna Swan, Count Down 2022
 
Quoted in the Guardian Newspaper . Updated May 2022

“In South Korea parents are spending 10% -15% of the income on tutoring for each child”
 
South Korean Ministry of Education (2000)

“first time ever more than half of women born in 1990 were still childless at the age of 30”
 
FT article January 27th, 2022
 
This is a massive single generation shift. The mothers of those 30 year olds had their first child at the age of 22

Migration

 
“Over 80% of all refugees are in fact in camps in developing rather than developed countries”
 
United Nations

Ageism 

“Ninety eight percent of the increase in the overall labour supply since then (2000) has come from those people between fifty five and seventy four.” 
European Union
 
“Older people have a lot of intrinsic assets. As a Society we will have much more of those assets. How are we going to use them?”Linda Fried (Columbia University). Co-author of the National Academy of Medicines “Global Roadmap for Healthy Ageing”.
 

"Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
Dylan Thomas

“To Me, Old Age is always Thirty Years Older than Me”
John Burroughs (1837-1921)

There is a wicked inclination in most people to suppose an old man decayed in intellect. If a young or middle aged man, when leaving company, does not recollect where he has laid his hat, it is nothing; but if the same inattention is discovered in an old man, people shrug their shoulders, and say "his memory is going”
Dr Johnson, 1783Included in a letter from Jerry O'Sullivan to the Financial Times February 2021, under the heading Ageism is not New.

“the young have bad manners, contempt for authority, disrespect for their elders and a love for chatter instead of exercise. Children began to become the tyrants of their households ……. They no longer rise for their elders ….”
SocratesIncluded in Prof Bobby Duffy's book "Generations"

“the young have bad manners, contempt for authority, disrespect for their elders and a love for chatter instead of exercise. Children began to become the tyrants of their households ……. They no longer rise for their elders ….”
SocratesIncluded in Prof Bobby Duffy's book "Generations"

 “Ageism is prejudice against our future selves”
Carole Eastern CEO Ageing Better.
 
“We need a new word for retirement. Retirement means retirement from paid work”.
Dr Hannah Swift. Senior Lecturer/ Project Director Re-dressing Ageism in Fashion, University of Kent.
 
“Ageism compounds all other “isms”. Ageism and sexism; ageism and racism etc”
Dame Carol Black, the Centre for Ageing Better.
 
“We don’t have roles in Society that older people want to do. Put them in the right role and they will shine. That is the best way stop agism” .
Linda Fried (Columbia University). Co-author of the National Academy of Medicines “Global Roadmap for Healthy Ageing”.
Exploiting the Opportunity of an Ageing Population 
“We do not invest in life extension, we invest in prolonging healthy human performance” Sergey Jakimov, Founder, LONGVC. (Longevity Venture Capital)
 
 

“the young have bad manners, contempt for authority, disrespect for their elders and a love for chatter instead of exercise. Children began to become the tyrants of their households ……. They no longer rise for their elders ….”
SocratesIncluded in Prof Bobby Duffy's book "Generations"

 “Ageism is prejudice against our future selves”Carole Eastern CEO Ageing Better.
 
“We need a new word for retirement. Retirement means retirement from paid work”.Dr Hannah Swift. Senior Lecturer/ Project Director Re-dressing Ageism in Fashion, University of Kent.
 
“Ageism compounds all other “isms”. Ageism and sexism; ageism and racism etc”Dame Carol Black, the Centre for Ageing Better.
 
“We don’t have roles in Society that older people want to do. Put them in the right role and they will shine. That is the best way stop agism” .Linda Fried (Columbia University). Co-author of the National Academy of Medicines “Global Roadmap for Healthy Ageing”.
Exploiting the Opportunity of an Ageing Population 
“We do not invest in life extension, we invest in prolonging healthy human performance” Sergey Jakimov, Founder, LONGVC. (Longevity Venture Capital)

Felt Age 

“Our Bodies May be on Earth but our Heads are on Mars”
 
Lindner & Nosek 2018

Health Equals Wealth

The Scale of the Problem“Increasing life expectancy by 1 year is worth US$38Tn to the US Economy and by ten years US$367Tn”.
Andrew Scott, The London Business School.
 
“Longevity is one of the defining challenges of this century”. “This year the US passed the transition point. There were more over 65’s than under 15’s”. 
Linda Fried (Columbia University). Co-author of the National Academy of Medicine’s “Global Roadmap for Healthy Ageing”.
 
“By 2030 50% of our population will be over 50”(Spain is becoming the oldest country in the world)
Naira Artaza Aristondo, Cabinet Office of the Government of Biscay.
 
Reframing the Problem“Health matters more to economic productivity than at any time in the last 200 years.”“We can’t have a healthy economy without a healthy population”.Andy Haldane. CEO Royal Society of Arts, ex Chief Economist at the Bank of England
 
“Health improvement is part of productivity improvement”.Michael Gove. UK Minister for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and Minister for Intergovernmental Relations
 
The end of the 20th Century Medical Model of Health“Health-care systems based only on response to illness are no longer affordable, and economies need a more productive workforce. The current model, which focuses on reactive sick-care alone, must be shifted to a new one based on proactive prevention, with the ever-growing recognition that the wealth of nations is not possible without the health of populations”.UK National Innovation Centre for Ageing
 
“Between 2010 and 2018 healthcare costs (in Singapore) doubled. It will triple again between 2018 and 2030. It is unsustainable.”John Wong (National University of Singapore). Co-author of the National Academy of Medicine’s “Global Roadmap for Healthy Ageing”.
 
“ The current health system is totally unsustainable. We are a super tanker heading towards an iceberg. Everybody knows what is going to happen but no one is trying to stop it”.David Sinclair. Co-Director of the Paul F Glenn Centre for the Biology of Ageing Research at the Harvard Medical School.
 
Prevention Rather than Treatment“Government sets targets for the number of new hospitals, the number of nurses and the length of the waiting list. This is a policy cul-de-sac. The targets should be about the health of the nation. This would be a policy inflection point and a switch to prevention”.Lord Bethell. Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Health and Social Care
 
“I have wasted by entire career as a doctor. 80% of health outcomes are outside of medicine”.John Wong, (National University of Singapore). Co-author of the National Academy of Medicines “Global Roadmap for Healthy Ageing”.
 
“To do this we need to be able to see names not numbers”“We need to move away from the 20th Century medical model. From dependency to contribution; from separation to inclusion; from rest to activity. Stop wrapping old people in cotton wool” Andy Burnham, Mayor of Manchester. (The World Health Organization first Age Friendly City).
 
“Age is malleable. Healthy behaviours can prevent chronic conditions and slow down functional decline!" Sarah Harper, Clore Professor of Gerontology, University of Oxford.
 
 
“The switch from treatment to prevention requires a period of double running. The stock of sick patients still need to be treated. It will take time for prevention to reduce the flow of new patients”. UK National Innovation Centre for Ageing
 
 Health as a Societal Issue “Geographical Inequality scars our Society. The lowest life expectancy exists in areas that also suffer from low educational achievement, the poorest housing ; high unemployment; poor public transportation etc etc”.
“We have to overcome the people who believe that it is their sovereign right to eat as many Frosties as they want. They believe there is no place for Government to intervene”. 
Michael Gove , Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and Minister for Intergovernmental Relations
 
“80% of health outcomes are influenced by the Social Determinants of Disease”.
John Wong. (National University of Singapore). Co-author of the National Academy of Medicines “Global Roadmap for Healthy Ageing”.
 
Healthy Ageing is a lifetime jobExtending longevity starts in childhood if not the womb:
“The ACE scale (Adverse Childhood Experiences) can predict all manner of health and social outcomes in later life. The higher your score. The higher your chances of high addiction; diabetes; heart disease; lupus; obesity…”
 
Joanne Cash Co-Founder ParentGym
 
"A Happy child learns better. There are currently over 200 Ways of Measuring Wellbeing in UK Schools. We need a consistent set of measures ”.
David Gregson, The Gregson Family Foundation
 
Personal and Public Finance“The pension industry totally underestimates the resilience of young people to work later in life. With better work life balance we should be enjoying work. They are setting impossible savings targets.”
Iona Bain Founder the Grown Up Money Blog.
 
“We should talk about lifespan; Healthspan and WEALTHSPAN”.
Dani Saurymper, Portfolio Manager Aging , Pacific Asset Management.
 
Care“80% of care is provided by families. There are 10.6m carers like this in the UK. They represent a Second NHS”.
Madeline Starr, Director of Business Development, Carer UK
 
“There are 8000 new unpaid carers a week taking on the task. They have no training”.
Dr Caroline Green, Social Care Researcher, Kings College London.
 

The Ageing Body

“in terms of health, a woman who is sixty today is equivalent to a woman of forty in 1960”
“Today’s eighty- year- old American man is the same as a sixty- year- old as recently as 1975”.
 
Dr Robert Butler is head of the “Alliance for Health and the Future”.

"In a life time we will walk a distance equivalent to walking around the equator five times!”
 
Simon Costain. Harley Street “Gait & Posture” Clinic

“Beyond the age of 40 we can gain half a shoe size for every decade.”
 
Simon Costain of the Harley Street “Gait & Posture” Clinic.

“Since 1960 the surface area of an average US dinner plate has increased 36 percent.”
 
https://eatouteatwell.com/how-big-are-your-dinner-plates-and-why-it-matters/

The Ageing Senses 

 
“The taste cells within the taste buds have an average lifespan of eight to twelve days”.
Anon

“On 24th February 1987 two men became the first people to see a supernova with the naked eye for nearly five hundred years.”
 
The New Scientist

“Human nose can detect 1 trillion odours”
 
Nature March 2014

The bionic eye was costed at $35,268,799 plus tax per eye! 
premiumbeat.com.
 
The cost of a camera that would be as good as your eye.

“eating chocolate in the name of science”.
 
Guardian Newspaper’ Amy Fleming
 
She uses the phrase “sonic seasoning” to describe how the frequency of music can influence the taste of the chocolate.

The Ageing Mind 
 

 
“Our memory is not a videotape but a jigsaw”.
 
Daniel Levitin, The Changing Mind: A Neuroscientist’s Guide to Ageing Well.

“ Perception doesn’t just happen – it entails a string of logical inferences and is the outcome of unconscious inference, problem solving and outright guesses about the structure of the physical world”
 
Daniel Levitin, The Changing Mind: A Neuroscientist’s Guide to Ageing Well. Chapter 3

 
“It is not until the 80’s are reached that the average older adult will fall below the middle range (mental) performance of young adults…” 
 
Schaie, W. (2005)

 
The Portion of Food is the Same.
 

A big plate makes us think we are eating less.

“When four of us eat together, all of us will eat seventy five percent more. With seven we eat almost twice as much”
 
Brian Wansink 2006. Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More than We Think

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The Business of Age

The Business of Age

Voices

Quotes not to miss

Growing Old

Living Longer

Fertility

Migration

Ageism

“Older people have a lot of intrinsic assets. As a Society we will have much more of those assets. How are we going to use them?”

Dylan Thomas

John Burroughs (1837-1921)

Dr Johnson, 1783

Socrates

Socrates

Exploiting the Opportunity of an Ageing Population

“We do not invest in life extension, we invest in prolonging healthy human performance”

Socrates

“Ageism is prejudice against our future selves”

“We need a new word for retirement. Retirement means retirement from paid work”.

“Ageism compounds all other “isms”. Ageism and sexism; ageism and racism etc”

“We don’t have roles in Society that older people want to do. Put them in the right role and they will shine. That is the best way stop agism” .

Exploiting the Opportunity of an Ageing Population

“We do not invest in life extension, we invest in prolonging healthy human performance”

Felt Age

Health Equals Wealth

The Scale of the Problem

“Longevity is one of the defining challenges of this century”.

“This year the US passed the transition point. There were more over 65’s than under 15’s”.

“By 2030 50% of our population will be over 50”

Reframing the Problem

“Health matters more to economic productivity than at any time in the last 200 years.”

“We can’t have a healthy economy without a healthy population”.

“Health improvement is part of productivity improvement”.

The end of the 20th Century Medical Model of Health

“Between 2010 and 2018 healthcare costs (in Singapore) doubled. It will triple again between 2018 and 2030. It is unsustainable.”

“ The current health system is totally unsustainable. We are a super tanker heading towards an iceberg. Everybody knows what is going to happen but no one is trying to stop it”.

Prevention Rather than Treatment

“Government sets targets for the number of new hospitals, the number of nurses and the length of the waiting list. This is a policy cul-de-sac. The targets should be about the health of the nation. This would be a policy inflection point and a switch to prevention”.

“I have wasted by entire career as a doctor. 80% of health outcomes are outside of medicine”.

“To do this we need to be able to see names not numbers”

“We need to move away from the 20th Century medical model. From dependency to contribution; from separation to inclusion; from rest to activity. Stop wrapping old people in cotton wool”

“Age is malleable. Healthy behaviours can prevent chronic conditions and slow down functional decline!"

“The switch from treatment to prevention requires a period of double running. The stock of sick patients still need to be treated. It will take time for prevention to reduce the flow of new patients”.

Health as a Societal Issue

Healthy Ageing is a lifetime job

Personal and Public Finance

Care

The Ageing Body

The Ageing Senses

The Ageing Mind

The Portion of Food is the Same.