Is aging a disease?
A recent article (1) argues aging should not be considered a disease and should not be treated as such. The article, however, concedes that “aging is likely amenable to optimization of changes/adaptations at an individual level to achieve a better functional health span.”
This sounds ambiguous. If one can improve an individual’s health span by curing or at least alleviating the rate of aging, then, it has to be considered a disease. The fact that medicine does not know how to tackle aging is not sufficient to argue it is not a disease. Afterall, modern medicine seldom cures any disease, let alone aging.
Suppose we characterize aging as a disease, it has huge implications for healthcare. Although medicine does not approach problems this way, the first rational question will be what causes aging. Can aging be considered as an aggerate effect of all other diseases the individual has endured? Can aging be considered an aggregate effect of all toxins the individual has consumed, food, pharmaceuticals, and water included? Can aging be considered as an aggregate effect of all mental and physical stress the individual has endured? Can aging be driven by the ratio of activity to the lack of it in the brain and in the body?
Aging is certainly driven by many factors, including previous diseases, toxins consumed, stress endured, and inactivity. If so, there could be therapeutic interventions that can slow down the rate of it and as the article conjectures, optimize an individual’s state.
It is time the life sciences industry stopped seeking to alleviate symptoms, but to cure diseases, aging being the primary culprit.