According to some estimates, slowing the rate of aging just enough to postpone the age of onset of multiple age-related chronic diseases by two to three years would save hundreds of billions of dollars in health care costs. Furthermore, lowering age-specific mortality rates from multiple causes by slowing the rate of aging may be easier to achieve than lowering them to the same extent by developing a separate, more specific intervention for each of a multitude of age-related life-threatening diseases of which atherosclerotic heart disease, cancer, stroke, lung infections, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease are among the most common.