Investing in life: Longevity technology and planning for an extended horizon

How would you advise clients if their life expectancy suddenly leapt to 130 years? While I suspect that most current financial planning models do not prepare for such a long horizon, recent advances in the science and technology of longevity make that notion less fanciful. In fact, much longer investment horizons may be in the offing in the not–distant future.

A disclaimer: I’m not a financial professional. I hold at best an amateur understanding of financial markets, planning, and strategies for developing and sustaining wealth. However, as a biomedical scientist, I know a bit about the inner workings of the beings who make those financial investments.

First, the good news: We may be living much longer than we had anticipated. The rapid advances in longevity technology promise to bequeath us more years to enjoy with our loved ones, our travels, and our hobbies. That all sounds pretty great.

And now the bad news: We may be living much longer than we had anticipated. This poses a greatly increased risk of depleting our portfolios, insolvency of the Social Security system, exacerbated income disparity, and other societal challenges.

Although human life expectancy has doubled in roughly the past century, some studies claim that we may be reaching a point at which this increase will end. Indeed, the rate of lifespan extension has slowed over past decades, and U.S. life expectancy has actually dropped from its 2014 peak. However, projections that longevity may not increase much more through further medical advances make a critically important — and potentially flawed — assumption: that we will be unable to alter the rate of the biological aging clock that inexorably leads to age–related decline. In fact, dramatic advances in the science of aging show that the rate of aging in animals can be manipulated and their lifespan profoundly extended.

The goal of longevity science is decidedly not to increase lifespan by extending end–of–life decline. Rather, it seeks to prevent or forestall many age–related diseases, including cardiovascular disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, neurodegenerative diseases, osteoporosis, and many others all at one go. It will do so not by treating each of these diseases individually but rather by applying a single intervention aimed at the root cause of all of them: aging.

We know that our healthy lifespan can be prolonged by many years through optimal diet, weight, sleep, mental health, social interaction, and physical activity, as well as avoidance of life–shortening practices such as smoking and alcohol abuse. However, the science of aging, bursting forth fast and furious at a clip of about 1,000 scientific publications a week, promises to get way out in front of these known measures.

Recent discoveries have shown that minor changes to the genes of laboratory animals can greatly slow the aging clock, thereby extending lifespan and postponing age–related decline. For example, single gene changes in a tiny worm can stretch its lifespan by a factor of 10, analogous to a human living 800 years. Remarkably, unusually long–lived humans show changes in the same genes, suggesting that observations in lab animals are directly relevant to human aging.

Such breakthroughs have pointed us to drugs that delay the onset of age–related diseases and promote considerably longer lifespans in animals. A number of these are being tested in humans: Over 100 ongoing clinical trials are examining the efficacy of interventions that may slow aging and lead to a protracted period of health. Some of these drugs, including rapamycin and metformin, have been prescribed by physicians for many years for other purposes, and hence their risks and side effects are well understood. Such repurposed drugs, if effective, hold the greatest promise for human “healthspan” extension in the near term.

As results from clinical trials appear over the coming years, we may soon face a provocative decision. Should we, as healthy individuals, choose to take a drug that treats the only affliction that all humans face: aging?

A recent major breakthrough has been the development of technologies that accurately predict a person’s effective biological age based on age–related changes to our DNA. Commercial lab tests, using only blood, saliva, or cheek swab samples, allow us to ask whether behavioral changes or a drug makes us age more slowly.

In the coming years, we might also be vaccinating against aging. Such vaccines would act by removing our own age–accumulated “senescent cells” that serve no value but produce substances that speed up aging. Removing these harmful cells through vaccination improves age–related decline in mice. It may soon take only a simple poke in the arm to live a longer, heathier life.

A particularly stunning discovery made in the past two years indicates that aspects of aging can actually be reversed. By making changes to genetic instructions in an animal, the biological aging clock can be set back by “rebooting” older cells to a younger state. In the future, such gene therapy may be used to rejuvenate an older person’s cells, thereby reversing age–related decline.

While no one intervention is likely to be the ticket to a much longer life, a combination of some or all of these approaches may well stretch the arc of our lives dramatically.

I’ve had the privilege of discussing these exciting healthspan–extending technologies with groups of financial planners, estate attorneys, and accountants around the country. These experts and their clients have posed provocative questions that prompt me to think about the impact of this technology on financial planning and society.

How might longevity technology influence financial advisers and their clients? To prepare for the coming changes in lifespan extension, it would be of value to discuss with clients the technology soon to come.

An adviser might ask:

• What is the client’s family health and longevity history? These are significant predictors of one’s own lifespan.
• What lifestyle behaviors known to affect healthy lifespan do they practice?
• What are their beliefs about the validity of science and modern medicine?
• Do they take an interest in longevity technology and science?
• And perhaps most importantly, how long do they want to live in a healthy, vibrant state? And would they choose to use new technologies that promise to give them more years?

For clients who are interested in taking advantage of longevity technology, investment horizons might need to be revised. These individuals may gain more life, but they will need to figure out how to pay for it.

It is especially important to engage younger clients in these discussions. After all, it is their generation that will feel the most profound effects of longevity technology. The long–term tax benefits of Roth accounts may be particularly valuable to such individuals as the period of vigorous life is extended. Their investments might need to last many decades beyond retirement. Lucky kids.

Healthspan extension could have an enormous impact on the world economy. One model claims that a mere one–year increase in healthspan would be worth $38 trillion and a 10–year extension $367 trillion, as a result of increased consumption and productivity. That’s more than three times the world’s current GDP. Not small change.

A commonly expressed concern is that longevity technology will lead to even greater overpopulation. This may not be the problem it seems. First, since healthspan extension acts on the phase of life after people have had children, it does not lead to exponential population growth. Its impact on world population is therefore modest. Several demographic projections based on current birthrate trends agree that the world population will peak around the end of the century and then undergo a precipitous decline. What if there are healthy, vigorous people who have enjoyed many more birthdays than are currently allowed by the human aging clock? There may be plenty of room on the planet for them to savor these extra decades of healthspan.

Other societal challenges arising from this technology, for example, wealth disparity — which already skews life expectancy trends with a difference of 30 years between the wealthiest and poorest nations — will need to be resolved, as humans have done for so many other disruptive advances.

Based on the astonishing pace of discoveries that promise to slow and even reverse the clock that relentlessly drives us toward our mortal end, many currently working–age people may end up with a surprise gift of many more decades ahead. In fact, it’s conceivable that some of my current 20–something students might live to 130 years and even longer. And further advances made during the century ahead for them might stretch their life expectancy even more. Of course, I won’t be around for them to tell me if I was wrong. But given the remarkable recent progress in longevity science, it’s not hard to imagine that many people’s lifelong plans will need to accommodate a much longer period than they had ever imagined.

Here’s to a long and healthy life — and may we be well prepared to enjoy it!