In the July 9, 2009 issue of Britain's Economist, we find an article on life extension called, Of Mice and Monkeys. It moves from a discussion of how semi-starvation has been found to extend the lifespans of monkeys, but then goes on to discuss a substance called rapamycin, a naturally occuring substance, isolated originally from a strain of bacterium found on Easter Island. Experiments with lab rats have shown a 38% increase in life expectancy for females and 28% for males.

There are hundreds of articles like this one on hundreds of substances, natural and synthetic, that show promise for extending lifespan. I have no idea if rapamycin is going to be the break-through that medical science is seeking, but I do know that a lot time, effort, and money are going into the search. The rapid rise in the over-60 crowd currently underway that will become ever more dramatic each for year for the next fifteen years or so guarantees a huge potential market for anything that extends lifespan and improves its quality.

Sure, you can improve the quality of life after 60 or whatever age without actually extending lifespan, but success in that regard makes it all the more interesting to older people to seek ways to increase their lifespan, so quality enhancement plays right into the market for increased longevity.

As every pharmaceutical company on Planet Earth is well-aware, the accelerating global growth of the older population in countries where people have money to spend on new drugs they really want (and they really want to live long and prosper) means we already have a multi-trillion dollar market in place for increased longevity, and more on the way. The firm that can make a real break-through in this regard will make a really huge fortune in the process. It may not have anything to do with rapamycin, it may be something like a cure for cancer, we cannot know in advance.

But if there is a break-through to be found, they are determined to find it. And the wonderful thing about science is that, once an initial break-through is made, more follow. Think of how unraveling the human genetic code just a few years ago has led to "genetic engineering" becoming a common term everyone has heard.

When I suggest to would-be retirees and early retirees in their 50's and 60's that they have to assume they will live at least untiil 95, there is now slow, if begrudging, acceptance of that possibility compared to ten years ago. If I say 105, people just smile and tell me I am optimistic. I tell them that it is just as likely to be pessimistic. If you retire expecting to live until 85 or 95 and later discover that 105 or more is a real possibility, even likely, you'll understand what I mean.

So how long do you think you'll live? If you are planning a traditional retirement, you can call your estimate optimistic or pessimistic, but you had better err on the long side, not the short side, or live to regret it.

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