Dr. Olshansky will begin with a brief description of the demographic changes that led to the first longevity revolution. These include basic advances in public health that brought down early age mortality during the first half of the 20th century, followed by declining middle and old age mortality from lifestyle changes and medical technology in the latter half of the century. He will then describe how the basic biology of our species limits the duration of our lives, using body design as an example. The question that remains then is where we are headed in the future? On the one hand, he expects that for some subgroups of the population, such as minorities, we are on the verge of a decline in life expectancy. Driving this phenomenon are dramatic increases in adult-onset and childhood obesity. On the other hand, other subgroups of the population are likely to benefit from major breakthroughs in the field of aging that have the potential to slow down how rapidly we age. This is the best hope for healthy life extension in this century – a goal that colleagues and he refer to as a new paradigm for health promotion and disease prevention. Dr. Olshansky will end with a discussion of the implications of what might occur to the health status of future cohorts of older persons if the existing disease-specific medical model continues.