Is aging a disease you can cure?
That’s the question experts in healthcare and related fields have been asking–and debating–for years, especially after the World Health Organization (WHO) almost described old age as a disease.
In 2020, the WHO almost replaced the diagnosis of “senility” with “old age” in its International Classification of Diseases (ICD) catalog. Filed under a diagnostic category containing “symptoms, signs or clinical findings,” the code associated with this diagnosis would have included the word “pathological,” suggesting that old age itself is a disease.
Some welcomed the revision as a way to advance anti-aging treatments, but others feared it would lead to ageism and inadequate care from physicians and support staff. Instead of persevere to find what’s wrong with some patients, they could dismiss symptoms as signs of old age.
Given the concerns, the WHO retracted the revision. Last year the 11th version of the ICD was released with “aging-associated decline in an intrinsic capacity” instead of “old age” and with a code for “aging-related” diseases caused by “biological processes.”
What Is Aging?
The WHO defines aging as a biological process caused by the accumulation of molecular and cellular damage over time that eventually undermines the integrity and resiliency of the body. Aging leads to a gradual decrease in physical and mental capacity, a growing risk of disease and death.
Examples of diseases associated with aging:
- Dementia
- Hearing loss
- Osteoarthritis
- Osteoporosis
- Cardiovascular
- Disease
- Cataracts
- Hypertension
- Type 2 Diabetes
- Depression
Let's Cure It!
The dream of immortality is as persistent as arthritis.
If we could live to be 200 years old, then couldn’t you say that age itself is a disease? And shouldn’t you pursue a cure for this disease?
Yes, say researchers who maintain that aging is a multi-systemic disease and the underlying cause for chronic diseases affecting the elderly, noting that because our current healthcare system doesn’t see it that way, about 32% of U.S. Medicare spending goes to the last two years of life of patients with chronic illnesses, without any significant quality-of-life improvement.
Cure What?
If aging is a disease, then all 8 billion people on Earth have it, and everyone over the age of 65 has an advanced case. If aging is normal, there’s nothing to cure.
In 1962, Leonard Hayflick, professor of anatomy at the UCLA San Francisco School of Medicine, discovered that human cells have a limit in the number of times they can divide before they become exhausted. Previously, scientists thought that human cells were immortal. Hayflick also found that telomeres, which cap the ends of chromosomes and prevent them from fraying, shorten each time cells divide.
In 2013, a team of researchers identified nine hallmarks of aging:
- Disrupted communication between cells
- Genome mutations (associated with cancer)
- Telomere shortening
- Changes in DNA’s chemical structure
- Degradation of cellular proteins
- Diminished cellular ability to identify and adjust to nutrient levels
- Impaired mitochondrial functioning
- Cellular senescence
- Nonrenewal of stem cells
Although the net effect of these is aging, we don’t know what causes them, and there are no biomarkers to describe aging itself.
Final Thoughts
Is aging a disease we need to go to war against, defeat and conquer? It may be or may not be. But what are the chances that humans will ever stop fighting it?
Sources: WHO, National Library of Medicine, Frontiers in Genetics, Slate, The Lancet.
