Global research partnership will tackle challenge of healthy ageing
A new UK-led research consortium has been formed to tackle one of the biggest challenges currently facing the world: healthy ageing.
The global partnership will bring together six UK organisations and 14 US and Canadian institutions to explore how humans age, with the aim of developing new interventions to support healthy ageing.
UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has awarded funding from its Securing Better Health, Ageing and Wellbeing Strategic theme to the muscle resilience network, MyAge, which is leading on the initiative.
Together with five other UK Ageing Networks (UKAN) – the independent health advisory and delivery organisation, ATTAIN; Building Links in Ageing Science and Translation (BLAST); the Cognitive Frailty Interdisciplinary Network (CFIN); the interdisciplinary research collective, Extracellular Matrix Ageing (ECMage); and the Food4Years Ageing Network – it is hoped the award will not only strengthen existing partnerships but encourage collaborative, multidisciplinary research with the aim of alleviating the development of many of the illnesses and conditions often suffered by older people.
It is hoped this will ultimately lead to healthier ageing.
Common health conditions associated with an older population can include everything from hearing loss to cataracts, osteoarthritis, diabetes, obstructive pulmonary disease, dementia, depression, cancer, and stroke.
As people age, it is not uncommon for them to be living with more than one condition at a time.
With people living longer across the globe, all countries are now facing major age-related health, societal and economic challenges.
The number of people aged 60 and over has tripled since the 1950s, and according to the United Nations, the population aged 65 and over is growing faster than all other age groups.
The World Health Organisation predicts that by 2030, one in six people will be aged over 60, with the share of the population in this age group expected to have risen from one billion in 2020 to 1.4 billion by the end of the decade.
There are projected to be more than two billion over-60s by 2050.
Dr Kambiz Alavian
Whilst an ageing population can bring many positive opportunities, not just for older people themselves, but their families, and society, it can also be associated with a host of potential problems.
These can include increased pressure on already over-stretched health services, to lack of economic growth, differing work and retirement patterns, a decline in the ability of communities and governments to provide adequate resources, and even a change in how families function.
Age-related opportunities, or otherwise, depend heavily on one factor, however. Health.
According to WHO, evidence suggests the proportion of life lived in good health has remained broadly constant, implying that additional years are in poor health.
Testimony from the UK suggests that adults, particularly women, often spend their last decade in poor health.
Dr Kambiz Alavian is a Neuroscience reader in the Department of Brain Sciences at Imperial College London, Deputy Director of UKAN, and co-lead for MyAge.
He explained: “This global consortium brings together a group of world-leading institutions and experts in ageing research. Through the exchange of ideas, expertise and capacity building, the interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary partnerships will focus on transformative ideas that can generate scientific, interventional, and societal impact.”
The UK-North American project will focus on two broad areas of research.
One will explore the mechanics of ageing to foster the development of biological, pharmaceutical/nutraceutical, behavioural, lifestyle, clinical and societal interventions to promote healthy ageing and improve lifespan.
The second will be to develop novel interventions on topics ranging from biomedical to environmental and social factors that play a part in ageing.
Dr Alavian said: “True societal impact in this area requires a comprehensive understanding of the problem at all levels and a global effort to bring together solutions from a range of scientific disciplines.”
He continued: “We’re collectively very well placed to reach out overseas and are very excited about this collaboration. We are keen to hear from potential US and Canadian collaborators in industry and the academic sector and will be keeping the UKAN networks informed of future collaboration opportunities.”
