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posted by martyb on Tuesday March 03 2020, @05:42PM   Printer-friendly
from the How-old-is-Betteridge? dept.

Is Aging a Disease?

Whether ageing can be cured or not, there are arguments for thinking about it like a disease. But there are major pitfalls, too.

The first depiction of humanity's obsession with curing death is The Epic of Gilgamesh—which, dating back to at least 1800 B.C., is also one of the first recorded works of literature, period. Centuries later, the ancient Roman playwright Terentius declared, "Old age itself is a sickness," and Cicero argued "we must struggle against [old age], as against a disease." In 450 B.C., Herodotus wrote about the fountain of youth, a restorative spring that reverses aging and inspired explorers such as Ponce de León. But what once was a mythical holy grail is now seemingly within tantalizing reach. As humans' understanding and knowledge of science and technology have increased, so too have our life spans.

[...] Maybe the ancients weren't wrong, and aging can be not only delayed but cured like a disease. Over the years, the movement to classify aging as a disease has gained momentum not only from longevity enthusiasts but also from scientists. In 1954, Robert M. Perlman published a paper in the Journal of American Geriatrics Society called "The Aging Syndrome" in which he called aging a "disease complex." Since then, others have jumped on board, including gerontologists frustrated by a lack of funding to study the aging process itself.

[...] However, labeling aging itself as a disease is both misleading and detrimental. Pathologizing a universal process makes it seem toxic. In our youth-obsessed society, ageism already runs rampant in Hollywood, the job market, and even presidential races. And calling aging a disease doesn't address critical questions about why we age in the first place. Instead of calling aging a disease, scientists should aim to identify and treat the underlying processes that cause aging and age-related cellular deterioration.

Medical understanding of that cellular deterioration began in 1962, when Leonard Hayflick, professor of anatomy at the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine, made fundamental breakthroughs to understanding aging: He discovered a limit to how many times typical human cells divide before they become senescent, or exhausted. Before then, scientists had assumed human cells were immortal. Hayflick also figured out that telomeres, which cap the ends of chromosomes and prevent them from fraying, much like plastic tips preserve the ends of shoelaces, shorten each time a cell divides. When the telomeres get short enough, a cell stops dividing.

[...] Many gerontologists distinguish between "health span" and "life span," the length of time someone enjoys relative good health versus the length of someone's life. Longevity while in poor health, pain, or with limitations that sap quality of life makes little sense. Fleming urges "regulators and public policy makers to embrace healthspan as an organizing focus for facilitating the development of medicine that target aging and chronic diseases." This shift would promote research on disease-causing processes, which could help us prevent more age-related diseases, not just manage them.

As gerontologists Sean Leng and Brian Kennedy put it, "Aging is the climate change of health care." The Population Reference Bureau predicts that 100 million Americans will be 65 or older by 2060. How will we care for this population? It's daunting to think about one's own aging, let alone the 16 percent of the world's population who will be seniors[sic] citizens by midcentury. A big-picture approach focused on the processes of aging—processes we share with nearly all living organisms—will put us on a path not only to longer lives but to healthier ones.


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  • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday March 03 2020, @07:23PM (6 children)

    Outstanding! I should be able to get quite a lot of my taxes back when I file for disability for contracting old then. Ha! Suck it, Gen-Y/Z/OMGWTFBBQ!

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  • (Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Wednesday March 04 2020, @05:56PM (5 children)

    by fyngyrz (6567) on Wednesday March 04 2020, @05:56PM (#966575) Journal

    Outstanding! I should be able to get quite a lot of my taxes back when I file for disability for contracting old then.

    Yep. It's called "social security", and that's exactly what it is all about. Good to see you're paying attention! 👍

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    • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday March 05 2020, @03:49PM (4 children)

      by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Thursday March 05 2020, @03:49PM (#966961) Homepage Journal

      Nah, SS is a Ponzi scheme that you have to pay in to on top of all the other bullshit taxes that you get stuck with. Ima get some of the latter back.

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      • (Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Saturday March 07 2020, @06:42PM (3 children)

        by fyngyrz (6567) on Saturday March 07 2020, @06:42PM (#967948) Journal

        Nonsense. Although I'll grant you that congress steals from our little retirement investment; they should definitely stop that.

        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 09 2020, @12:52PM (2 children)

          Dude, latter investors paying out the returns of early investors with no actual service being preformed or money being earned is the definition of both a Ponzi Scheme and Social Security. The only difference is if your con man held office and made his instance legal or not.

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          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Tuesday March 10 2020, @06:46PM (1 child)

            by fyngyrz (6567) on Tuesday March 10 2020, @06:46PM (#969209) Journal

            You are poorly informed and pointing the finger in the wrong direction. The only reason later investors (SS taxpayers) are engaged in anything of the sort is because congress stole those funds by folding them into the general fund so they fail to earn the interest the program was designed to gain. There's nothing at all wrong with social security itself; the problem is the election of corrupt motherfuckers who steal the monies without even blinking.

            Fortunately, I have not had to claim SS, and don't plan to either, but I have been observing the thing for many decades now. Y'all keep electing fucktards to congress (and the presidency, for that matter), you're going to keep having your money stolen. Nothing is safe from those criminals.

            • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday March 12 2020, @02:53AM

              by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Thursday March 12 2020, @02:53AM (#970046) Homepage Journal

              Not remotely true. If every dime were paid back tomorrow, it would still be rapidly going broke. It does not invest the money except in treasury bonds, so there is no growth even worth mentioning as years pass. There is inflation though, so what you paid in is guaranteed to be worth fuck-all by the time you need it. The majority of what is paid out today is mathematically required to come from those still paying in.

              Ponzi. Scheme.

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              My rights don't end where your fear begins.