The more I chewed it over, though, the distinction between aging and dying became blurrier. After all, it is accurate to define aging as one of the biggest risk factors for an assortment of potentially fatal ailments. Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, heart disease, cancer, stroke—the older you get, the more likely it is that you’ll be affected by one of these killers. In that regard, aging is fast becoming a public health crisis. The number of Americans over the age of 85 is expected to increase by 350 percent from 2000 to 2050, and there will be almost 84 million of us older than 65 halfway through this century. These dramatic demographic shifts are poised to disrupt just about every facet of American life, yet our federal government spends only $3.67 per person on aging research. [Full Article]