Non-communicable disease presents an as-yet, unresolved health research challenge. But they may also lie at the heart of a similarly unresolved intergenerational, macroeconomic challenge.

To date, governments and academics around the world have sat back and carefully observed the epidemic of overweight, obesity, metabolic syndrome and diabetes overtake their communities.

The food industry has aggressively defended its turf, understandably resisting any calls for regulation in the absence of definitive evidence that these interventions will work.

Only the most courageous of politicians would ever embark on the regulation of such a powerful sector in the absence of evidence supporting efforts such as restricting advertising to children, mandating processed food composition, food labeling and taxing macronutrients know to be harmful.

So we find ourselves at an impasse that no one seems particularly able to break.

An emerging theme related to this issue is the idea that while the health system has succeeded in delivering extended life, it has not yet extended healthy life years. As such, the population still shudders at the thought of raising the retirement age past 70, even though average life expectancy now surpasses 80.

Non-communicable disease is considered a major driver of this divergence. As such, preventing non-communicable disease may represent an important challenge, not only driven by a health/moral imperative, but also for important economic reasons.

There are significant macroeconomic consequences of people not living most of their lives in a productive state of health. Most significant of these is the capacity of societies to sustain pensions when boomer-driven demographic shifts result in an increasing ratio of pensioners to tax payers.

This places life insurers, governments and superannuation funds into the medium- to long-term frame as key beneficiaries of addressing non-communicable disease.

This in turn makes them key targets for attracting investment capital to a venture addressing this concern.

Imagine a world where people lived healthy, vital, productive lives well into the 70s.

Too much?

Google have spotted this opportunity by investing $100Ms in a new start up called the California Life Company (CaLiCo). Its initial focus is on “ageing” with an early emphasis on genomics, epigenetics and a pharmaceutical fix.

I starting to think the answer is much simpler: Eat food, not too much, mainly plants. Move.

It’s about less, not more.

Establishing the evidence for this inkling, and then commercialising the insights gained is the inspiration behind Riot Health.

Stand by.