Are we living longer and healthier or longer and sicker?

Is society’s current approach to healthcare helping us live longer and healthier, or longer and sicker?

The real opportunity for the future of healthcare is curing chronic health illnesses. Or better yet, prevent them altogether. New technologies are enabling tremendous breakthroughs, such as the rapid development of the mRNA vaccine. Meanwhile, gene editing and personalised medicine powered by artificial intelligence are beginning to move beyond the research lab.

Watch: Curing The Future - A Different Lens, episode 27.

But, as Monash University professor Mark Febbraio says:

"If we get a drug for every disease and we put people on a cocktail of drugs when they're 70 years old so that they can live to 110 instead of 100, is that a good thing or not? The ethical or philosophical question is, are we living longer and healthier or are we living longer and sicker?