Research for a New Age

The study of aging is not what it used to be. Gerontology was a young science when congress created the National Institute on Aging (NIA) in 1974 as part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Rich in hypotheses but poor in data, gerontology lacked, or was just in the early stages of developing, ways to explore the fundamentals of the aging process. Knowledge of aging clustered around specific diseases associated with advancing age; indeed the notion that aging equated with decline and illness was widespread. Now, nearly 20 years later, the science base has grown in depth, breadth, and detail. And with this growth have come new insights into the processes and the experience of aging.

Driving the increasing interest in gerontology is a dramatic increase in the older population. People over 65, who were four percent of the U.S. population in 1900, will constitute 13 percent in the year 2000 and 20 percent by the year 2025. This boom in the population age 65 and over will have a profound impact on the Nation's health, social, and economic institutions. Research on aging is critical not only to help society adjust to the changes ahead but also to help people adapt to, perhaps even grow with, this fundamental change in our society. How has gerontology evolved over the last two decades? Most fundamental of the changes is a new perspective on aging and the aged. It has become clear, as more and more knowledge emerges, that aging can no longer be equated with inevitable decline and disease. Consider Alzheimer's disease: This form of dementia has now been linked to alterations in specific proteins and effects in certain regions of the brain; it is no longer possible to think of it as "senile dementia", the old term, which implied that losing one's memory was simply part of growing older. Instead Alzheimer's is considered a disease that will yield eventually to treatment and preventive measures. Part of this new perspective has its roots in the use of new technologies to explore the fundamental biology of aging. Where gerontologists once theorized about the causes of growing old, they now have the means - in recombinant DNA techniques and nuclear magnetic resonance, for instance - to track down the actual mechanisms of aging in cells and tissues. Once these are understood, scientists will have a firm foundation for understanding disorders associated with aging. Fueling the growth of this science are increasing links between gerontology and other areas of research. For example, the study of aging cells has begun to overlap with research on the cellular mechanisms of cancer and cardiovascular disease. The study of the aging brain has numerous intersections with research on brain diseases. Once a tributary of biomedical research, gerontology has entered the mainstream.

Along with these developments in gerontology have come a sense of widening horizons and increasing discovery. The following pages describe major research issues at the National Institute on Aging and a few of the studies that are contributing to this sense of discovery. The NIA, one of 19 institutes at the National Institutes of Health, is organized along traditional NIH lines. The Institute conducts research in its laboratories in Baltimore and on the campus in Bethesda (the intramural program), and it sponsors research at universities, medical centers, and other sites around the country (the extramural program). Only a fraction of NIA's research, intramural and extramural, is described here. Through a sampling of studies, initiatives, findings, and research directions, this book is intended to give an overview of what the Institute has accomplished and where it's headed. This brief glimpse of aging research also illustrates the ultimate aim of gerontology: to promote health and independence in the second 50 years of life.

Gerontology has gradually built a foundation of databases and laboratory resources, such as cell banks and colonies of aged experimental animals. A major accomplishment of the last two decades, this growing resource base is critical to progress in the field.