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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.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2020, @08:28PM (9 children)
If I may speak as a representative of GenX, we've been warning the Millennials that the Boomers will not go quietly. But nobody ever listens... (shrug).
(Score: 2) by Bot on Tuesday March 03 2020, @10:20PM (8 children)
I dunno where you live, but boomers here in Italy have actually been defrauded of their pension funds (which BTW were institute by a socialist welfare maniac called Benito Mussolini probably with the long term intention of destroying family as a unit in favor of the state). So whenever somebody complains of boomers sucking pensions from the state I say: isn't that their money? if not, to whom did their money go? Easy, the scheme wasn't based on contribution so poor people paid the sky high pensions of the chosen few and now the chosen few managed to pin it on themselves. OK MILLENNIALS
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(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday March 04 2020, @03:14AM (1 child)
Shut up, Opus Dei. If you were truly Christian you'd be working on a way to sort this out.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday March 05 2020, @11:54PM
My homebrew covid-19 variant is not deadly enough to be released, have patience.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday March 04 2020, @07:30PM (5 children)
Depends on the country, but pay as you go is standard fare with boomers and older generations voting for the dude with the sweetest haircut/promises without regard to future ability to pay up. So no, it's not their money. That money got spent decades ago.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday March 04 2020, @08:11PM (4 children)
Exactly. So why blame the victims of theft?
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(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Thursday March 05 2020, @02:39PM (3 children)
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday March 05 2020, @11:52PM (2 children)
If you reason in terms of generations, race or wealth, you can reconstruct stuff however you like.
If I am forced to pay taxes to get pensions and my pension is not there, I am the victim. If the government can't do math and goes under, it is not my fault. Collective responsibility is promoted by the thief for the thief.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 06 2020, @02:58AM (1 child)
If instead you were forcing others to pay taxes to get your pension, then what are you?
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday March 06 2020, @02:17PM
The government.
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