More rejuvenation research
for an indefinitely long healthy life for everybody

Programme of the Party for Rejuvenation Research

The Party for Rejuvenation Research is a single-issue party. With future medicine, through rejuvenation, people are likely to stop dying of old age diseases or old age and live healthily for thousands of years. The Party for Rejuvenation Research wants to greatly accelerate the development of this medicine and thus save the lives of many millions of people. To achieve this, much more state money is to be invested in the construction and operation of additional research facilities and in the training of more people in the relevant fields, which includes the expansion of the relevant departments at universities such as biochemistry, molecular biology and medicine.  

The Party for Rejuvenation Research wants to leave all other political issues to the other parties. These can be dealt with by the coalition partners in case of participation in a government coalition.

Explanation:

Aging causes suffering and death

Currently, more than 100,000 people die each day from diseases of old age such as cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and cardiovascular disease. The main risk factor for age-related diseases is advanced biological age.

Curing aging with the repair approach and enabling indefinitely long healthy lives

In recent years, a new approach has become established in aging research, the so-called damage repair approach. In the course of aging, harmful changes occur in the body as a result of normal metabolism, among other things, which, above a certain level, lead to the diseases of old age. By repairing this damage at the molecular and cellular level, it is very likely that in the future it will be possible to biologically rejuvenate people and thus prevent all age-related disease. After rejuvenation, people would continue to age because damage would continue to occur. But if rejuvenation medicine, which scientists will improve over time, is then applied again and again at regular intervals, people could live practically indefinitely. At the same time, they would have the appearance and the physical and mental health and fitness of a young adult. In other words, aging would be curable.

The repair approach is relatively easy to implement

Reversing aging through the repair approach is much easier to implement than, for example, slowing down aging by intervening in metabolism. This is because metabolism is very complex and also not yet sufficiently understood. Trying to change metabolism to cause less damage would probably do more harm than good because metabolism is so intertwined, complicated and misunderstood. 

To implement the repair approach, on the other hand, you do not need to understand metabolism, you just need to know the damage and how to repair it. All damage can be divided into a manageable number of categories. Such categories are, for example, protein linkages, mitochondrial mutations and waste products inside and outside the cells. It can be assumed that all types of damage are already known and it is also known how to repair them in principle.

With appropriate funding, implementation possible in about 10 to 20 years

So we do not need any more new groundbreaking ideas or discoveries, we just need to implement the repair approach. However, this is a lot of work, as there are thousands of different types of damage and for each damage a different medicine has to be developed to repair it. At the moment, too few scientists worldwide are working on the implementation of the repair approach, i.e. the proportion of the damages for which the needed interventions are already in development is very small. If, however, thousands of research groups were now working on the implementation of the repair approach and each research group were to develop medicine for a different damage in parallel, then we would probably have medicine for thousands of different damages in about 10 to 20 years and could thus rejuvenate people to such an extent that they would no longer have to die from aging.

The repair approach is already established

The scientific publication „The Hallmarks of Aging“, which describes the repair approach, is the most cited scientific publication in the field of aging research of the last decade. Numerous start-ups, research institutes and university research groups are already working on implementing the repair approach, but unfortunately not nearly enough.

More and more well-known, prestigious and influential individuals and organisations are also investing billions in aging research. For example, Google has founded the company Calico, which wants to cure aging. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is investing in the company Altos Labs, which also aims to tackle aging. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife want to help cure, prevent or manage all diseases by the end of the century with their organisation CZI, and German web.de founder Michael Greve is investing several hundred million euros with his company Kizoo to implement the repair approach.

Worries and objections regarding the abolition of age-related death bear no relation to the suffering caused by aging today

If people stay young and healthy forever through rejuvenation medicine and no longer die from aging, they will theoretically live indefinitely, or until they succumb to another cause of death, such as an accident. 

Of course, new problems may arise from this revolution. However, every invention and exploration of new approaches carries opportunities as well as risks. We believe that societal risks should not prevent us from developing rejuvenation medicine that can solve the humanitarian problem of aging. Instead, we should be open to the challenge of solving future societal problems that might accompany rejuvenation medicine and engage in more discussion about them.

After all, there are already good solutions to practically all the problems that are mentioned in connection with a strong prolongation of life. For example, the objection of overpopulation can be answered by saying that new technologies such as renewable energy and lab-grown meat will enable our planet to cope with many more people in the future. And experience from industrialised countries shows that the birth rate falls as wealth and education levels rise.

Since we already know how to develop rejuvenation medicine through the repair approach and scientists are already working on it, the question is no longer whether we can or should develop this medicine, but how fast this development can proceed and when we want to reap the benefits of this development. So it would not be a solution to any problems if we did not speed up the development of rejuvenation medicine. The problems would just have to be solved later. 

Another point is that these possible problems are disproportionate to the current problem of more than 100,000 deaths per day from aging. They are nowhere near that big and could very likely be solved, so they cannot be an argument for not accelerating the development of effective anti-aging medicine. Or to put it another way: In an ageless world, we would not solve these problems by inventing and introducing aging and all its associated diseases either.

The fact that some people defend age-related death so vehemently can be explained as follows: In the past, nothing could be done about biological aging. At the same time, age-related death is so frightening and the thought of it so stressful that people repress it or talk it up to protect their psyche. This was a sensible coping strategy as long as we were powerless in the face of aging. Now, however, when we have a good chance of abolishing age-related death in the near future, this psychological self-protection has become a major problem because it stands in the way of faster implementation of the repair approach.

High urgency from an ethical and economic point of view

Our Basic Law states as a fundamental right that everyone has the right to life. You do not lose this right when you are old.

How much is now invested in the implementation of the repair approach in the coming years could be decisive for each individual as to whether they belong to the last generation to die from aging or whether they belong to the first generation that can live indefinitely in the best of health.

Now that we know that we can very likely cure aging in the foreseeable future, it is a scandal that not much more government investment is going into this area. From an ethical point of view, this would be urgently needed.

From an economic point of view, too, a faster development of rejuvenation medicine would be very beneficial. A lot of money would be saved by eliminating the costs of illness and care. Moreover, rejuvenation medicine will be one of the biggest economic sectors of the future, as everyone is affected by aging. If we invest more in this sector now, we could export knowledge and medicine in the future.

That is why we are calling for much more government investment

Therefore, the Party for Rejuvenation Research calls for a significant additional portion of the government budget to be invested in the implementation of the repair approach. 

Positive effects on other areas as well

An indefinitely long healthy life for all can also help solve many other major problems of today. For example, it is often said that the older generation does not care about the environment and climate because they are unlikely to experience the consequences themselves. If this were true, with unlimited life expectancy, many more people would be concerned about climate protection and make their contribution to overcoming the climate crisis.

Aging causes a lot of suffering worldwide. Counteracting this globally can unite humanity.

Fast alle Menschen leiden im Alter an Alterskrankheiten wie Krebs, Alzheimer, Schlaganfall, Herzinfarkt, Diabetes Typ 2, Makuladegeneration, Arthrose, Osteoporose und Parkinson.

Mit den heutigen Technologien der Biowissenschaften und neuen schulmedizinischen Ansätzen haben wir eine gute Chance, wirksame Medizin gegen diese Alterskrankheiten zu entwickeln, sodass alte Menschen körperlich und geistig gesund bleiben.

Die Partei für Gesundheitsforschung will die Entwicklung solcher Medizin beschleunigen. Sie befasst sich nur mit diesem einen Thema und überlässt andere politische Themen bei einer Regierungsbeteiligung den Koalitionspartnern.

Statistiken zeigen das Ausmaß des Problems: Mehr als ein Drittel aller Frauen und ca. die Hälfte aller Männer erkranken im Laufe ihres Lebens an Krebs ¹ .

Der Anteil der Erwachsenen mit bekanntem Diabetes Typ 2 wird auf sieben bis acht Prozent geschätzt ² und zu den häufigsten Erkrankungen des Menschen gehören Herz-Kreislauf-Erkrankungen ³, welche vor allem im Alter auftreten. 24 Prozent der 70 bis 85-Jährigen haben fünf oder mehr Krankheiten gleichzeitig ⁴. In Deutschland gibt es gegenwärtig fast 1,6 Millionen Demenzkranke. Von den über 90-Jährigen sind ca. 41 Prozent an einer Demenz erkrankt ⁵.

Die grundlegenden Ursachen von Alterskrankheiten sind bereits zu einem großen Ausmaß bekannt: Beim Altern entstehen eine Vielzahl molekularer und zellulärer Schäden, die sich nach und nach ansammeln und im Laufe der Zeit zu einer höheren Anfälligkeit für Alterskrankheiten führen ⁴.

Mögliche Ansätze für wirksame Medizin gegen Alterskrankheiten richten sich gegen diese Schäden, also gegen die eigentliche Ursache der Alterskrankheiten. Die Ansammlung der Schäden kann entweder verlangsamt werden oder bereits gebildete Schäden können repariert werden.

Ein Beispiel für einen solchen Ansatz ist das Entfernen von gealterten Zellen, die ihre ursprüngliche Funktion verloren haben. In Mäusen führte das zu einer erheblichen Verbesserung des Gesundheitszustandes von alten Tieren ⁶. Derzeit arbeiten mehrere weltweit führende Forschergruppen an Medizin für Menschen, welche die gealterten Zellen entfernt.

Wissenschaftler haben mehrere andere Klassen von Schäden oder schädlichen Veränderungen im Alter identifiziert, zusammen mit Interventionsmöglichkeiten ⁷.

Die weltweite wissenschaftliche Gemeinschaft beginnt langsam damit, wirksame Wirkstoffe und Therapien zu entwickeln, die kausal (statt symptomatisch) gegen Alterskrankheiten eingesetzt werden sollen. Zu diesem Zweck stehen ihr heute immer mehr Werkzeuge zur Verfügung.

Je mehr wir also in die Entwicklung neuer wirksamer Medizin investieren, desto schneller können Fortschritte erzielt werden und desto schneller kann das immense Leid durch Alterskrankheiten vermieden werden.

Deshalb möchte die Partei für Gesundheitsforschung ein Prozent des staatlichen Haushalts zusätzlich in die Entwicklung von wirksamer Medizin gegen Alterskrankheiten investieren. Da alle Menschen direkt oder indirekt von Alterskrankheiten betroffen sind, würden alle davon profitieren. Zur Finanzierung soll von jeder anderen Haushaltsstelle ein Prozent abgezogen werden.

Die Hälfte dieser zusätzlichen Investitionen soll in den Bau und Betrieb neuer Forschungseinrichtungen fließen, mit der anderen Hälfte sollen mehr Wissenschaftler in den relevanten Gebieten ausgebildet werden. Dafür sollen die entsprechenden Fachbereiche an Universitäten ausgebaut werden.

Doch die schnellere Entwicklung von wirksamer Medizin gegen Alterskrankheiten ist nicht nur eine Frage der Solidarität und Ethik. Deutschland würde davon auch wirtschaftlich in vielerlei Hinsicht stark profitieren. Die Krankheitskosten sind heutzutage bereits enorm und steigen mit dem demographischen Wandel immer weiter an. Ein Reduktion von Alterskrankheiten wird einen riesigen wirtschaftlichen Gewinn bedeuten. Außerdem wird sich diese Medizin gegen Alterskrankheiten zukünftig weltweit als größter Industriezweig etablieren, da jeder Mensch darauf angewiesen ist. Durch mehr Investitionen in diesem Bereich wird Deutschland seine Rolle als einer der wichtigsten Wissenschaftsstandorte in Europa weiter ausbauen.

Junge Menschen werden ebenfalls von unserem Vorhaben profitieren: Neben der finanziellen Entlastung durch sinkende Krankheitskosten werden sie beispielsweise ihre Eltern nicht mehr an Alzheimer leiden sehen müssen. Mehr junge Menschen werden eine vielerseits wertvolle wissenschaftliche Ausbildung bekommen. Zudem wird auch die junge Generation einmal alt sein und dann auf die Medizin angewiesen sein.

Wir haben jetzt die Chance, das unermessliche Leid durch altersbedingte Krankheiten drastisch zu vermindern. Doch wenn wir wollen, dass diese Chance genutzt wird, müssen wir jetzt etwas unternehmen. Gemeinsam können wir es schaffen. Wir sind auf Ihre Hilfe angewiesen und laden Sie ein dabei zu sein. Die Mitgliedschaft ist kostenlos, komplett unverbindlich und jederzeit einfach per E-Mail kündbar.

Allein schon Ihre passive Mitgliedschaft (praktisch kein Zeitaufwand außer ungefähr eine Minute für die Registrierung) in der Partei für Gesundheitsforschung ist sehr wertvoll.

Lassen Sie uns in Deutschland einen Anfang machen und eine Vorreiterrolle übernehmen. Viele andere Nationen werden hoffentlich bald verstärkt in die Entwicklung der dringend benötigten wirksamen Medizin gegen Alterskrankheiten investieren.