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AnonTechie writes:

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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