At some point along life’s trajectory, growing becomes aging, and gerotherapeutics—biologically-based approaches to health that target processes of aging—seems to be poised to respond. This theme issue investigates ethical valences of what this field suggests about our social, cultural, and historically entrenched patterns of pathologizing and medicalizing aging. Advancement in our understandings of physiological mechanisms of aging has prompted some to reconceive lifespans as health spans and suggests need for critical evaluation of whether and to what extent we should think of anti-aging ventures as legitimate enterprises of health care. Normative roles played by aging in our personal and relational narratives, in our expectations about how duration and quality of life confer value to life, and how life-extension promotes or undermines our notions of wisdom and a good life are all at stake.
Manuscripts submitted for peer review consideration and inclusion in this issue must follow Instructions for Authors and be submitted by 30 January 2025.
The AMA Journal of Ethics® invites original, English-language contributions for peer review consideration on the upcoming themes.