Page 6 - Priorities #26 2004-April

Community Forum
Time, Knowledge and Responsibilty Are Keys To Aging
Dr. Walter M. Bortz
I see the future of aging as an opportunity to grow into our humanity in more enlightened and enriched ways.
The following article is a series of three excerpts from the address delivered by Walter M. Bortz II on receiving the 2002 American Society on Aging Chair’s Award. Dr. Bortz, one of the most distinguished scientific experts on aging in the US, is the author of 150 scientific articles for research publications, as well as many books for professional and popular audiences. Dr. Borke will be the keynote speaker
at Woodside Priory School’s ninth Community Forum on April 6. See the back cover for details.
Humans are Blessed
. . . Human beings are blessed by the fact that today, for the first time in history, we know with confidence how long people can and should expect to live. This new knowledge is a surpassing gift—the gift of being able to forecast accurately the human lifetime.
Time is so important because it allows for accumulated learning. Every particle of our bodies and minds is shaped by experience. Not only do our brain dendrites grow as we experience more—for good and bad—but so too do our muscles, arteries, and fat deposits respond to the cueing that the environment provides... we humans become what we do. One way that humans have adapted to modern longevity is by spreading education across our lifetimes. Lifelong learning is a new idea. Until now, education has been thought of as confined to the early decades of life. . .
From Cure to Prevention
. . .Only a century and a half ago, medical science was entangled with metaphysics. Sickness was the result of sin until Louis Pasteur came along to initiate an empiric, knowledge-based approach to health
and disease. For the ensuing 150 years, the medical effort was devoted largely to the disease model of healthcare. This approach, getting rid of offending agents through surgery or drugs, boasted outstanding successes. Today, however, this repair model of healthcare proves woefully inadequate in addressing the chronic conditions that increasingly predominate. The disease-repair approach simply cannot cure any of the big killers we now face: heart disease, stroke,
emphysema, diabetes, arthritis. But—and this is the huge “but”—we can prevent most of them.
This shift away from “cures” leads to the next major era of health care, which is dominated by prevention, the current forefront of healthcare. It is entwined with a new knowledge of the potentials of human lifetime delivered by the exploration of aging.
Aging is now dissociable from genes, accidents and poor maintenance, the other determinants of health. No longer can we blame aging for most late- life miseries, because aging per se is a very stately process, which truly has minor impact on one’s well- being until the 10th decade of human life. Most of that which has been blamed on aging isn’t due to aging, but is traceble, upon close analysis, to other, more tractable agencies. This recognition by contemporary science is a great gift.
Rights and Responsibilities
This brings me to responsibility. We are born with rights, but we accumulate responsibility. As
we humans live longer and learn more, we develop responsibility for ourselves and for the world. This responsibility derives from knowledge, which in turn derives from time. In a recent issue of Science Journal, editor Donald Kennedy wrote of John Gardner, who died recently and who received the ASA Chair’s Award in 1999, “Gardner had a deep grasp of the paradox in American life. Our frontier devotion to personal freedom, even license, on the one hand, and our strongly held commitment to social order on the other is a topic visited by many scholars, but Gardner had a unique ability to extract the essence of this age- old dilemma. He compressed it into this summary
of the social contract: ‘freedom and responsibility, rights and responsibilities, liberty and duty, that’s the deal.” In order to frame the profound issue of human existence, we must live long enough to achieve self- mastery, self actualization. The late writer, Mae Sarton wrote, “As I age, I become more me.”. . .
. . . I see the future of aging as an opportunity to grow into our humanity in more enlightened and enriched ways. This is what I have learned about the meaning of life in 72 years. Invite me back 10 years from now, and I will tell you a richer story.
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