Did you read that right? Ageing, is natural, it is not a disease.
Ageing, generally, is considered to be natural and has been accepted as the default state by humans since we are born.
Any phenomena that affects less than 50% of the population is considered an aberration – this explains why cancers / heart problems / brain problems / diabetes are defined as diseases, whereas ageing, as it affects the majority (more than 50%) after a certain age, is viewed as being natural!
But is this view correct / accurate?
Let me share some recent headlines in mainstream media:
“The ambitious quest to cure ageing like a disease” appeared in BBC, article by Britt Wray, on 5th February 2018 1
“Opening the door to treating ageing as a disease” appeared in The Lancet on 1st August, 2018. 2
“Is there a cure for aging?” appeared in WebMD on 10th February, 2021.3
“It is time to classify biological aging as a disease” argue researchers Sven Bulterijs, Raphaella S. Hull, Victor C. E. Björk and Avi G. Roy4
“Is aging a disease?” article By Hannah Critchfield appeared in Tampa Bay Times on 13th July 2021 5 which had an interview with David Sinclair, Ph.D., a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School.
All screaming that “ageing is a disease”
There is a growing tribe of scientists, researchers, bio-gerontologists, etc. arguing that “ageing is the ultimate disease”. They contend that most diseases that we suffer from are a side effect of the mother disease – ageing! Diseases related to the heart, brain or cancers – the main killer diseases, essentially manifest as we grow older. Together, ageing-related diseases are responsible for 100,000 deaths per day or 2/3rds of the deaths per day!. The main business of Doctors, Hospitals, the Pharma industry and the healthcare ecospace is to treat these age related diseases only, whereas, the mother lode – ageing, remains untreated and we therefore continue to age and suffer from the same and other new age related ailments, as we age! If we treat and solve ageing itself, will we not solve majority of the death risks?
Leading lifespan experts now believe that “ageing is a disease” or that “ageing is a preventable condition”, and are now working aggressively on this new frontier.
Can we prevent ageing?
Can we find a cure for ageing? What does this mean?
In order to find a solution to ageing, we first need to know the real reason for ageing, its root cause. How close are we to understanding the same?
If we find a solution to ageing, can we eliminate the other age related diseases?
If we cure ageing, are we going to be able to live forever?
Every scientist / researcher / bio-gerontologist in the longevity space has a pet project seeking answers to some of the above questions and is busy “trying to solve ageing” or atleast, some part of it! The logic is straightforward, when we “solve ageing”, as a side effect, we will also “solve” age related diseases, apart from unleashing a whole load of other benefits!
Let me share the R & D focus of some of the leading scientists today:
Some day, anti-aging drugs may “eliminate damage from the body by resetting or turning back the clock.” says Aubrey de Grey, a leading biomedical gerontologist and writer of “Ending Ageing: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs That Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime”. He explains further the goal at his SENS Research Foundation: “our goal is to develop a suite of therapies for middle-aged and older people that will leave them physically and mentally equivalent to someone under the age of 30.” De Grey thinks that these therapies are may not be permanent fixes, that their cells may end up becoming 60 years old again, in another 30 years time. By then, he expects the therapies could be reapplied as “version 2.0” to revert the same individuals once again to become younger in their cells. And so on…
In other words, he believes “we are on the way to will solve ageing” and the first person who will live to be 1,000 years old is already among us!
“People don’t think about aging as something that is treatable or should be treated like a disease,” said David Sinclair, co-director of the Paul F. Glenn Center for Biology of Aging Research at Harvard Medical School. “But it is a disease. It’s just a very common one.” He adds, “solving ageing would reduce the incidents of cancer, dementia, cardiovascular disease and frailty. Solving ageing will help extend the number of years we’re healthy, rather than simply expand our number of years.”
Other leading researchers, scientists and experts from this field, such as George Church, Nir Barzilai, Gordon Lithgow, Andrew Steele, all share a similar view on ageing – treat it as a mother disease – you will live a healthy, long and active life and you will solve all other age related diseases as well. And they are all working very hard in multiple projects, to “solve ageing”.
I believe, our responsibility should be to support them as much as we can, stay healthy, adopt current research findings to impact our ageing positively, and await the success of these scientists and researchers to solve ageing.
History of the last two centuries shows how we have successfully overcome various diseases and continued to evolve and grow. I believe we are now ready to focus on the challenge to “solve ageing: the ultimate disease” and with that “solve the various age related diseases” also. And I am confident of our victory.
What do you think?
Akkshay Mehta
(Age Reversal Evangelist)
This blog is my effort to inspire you with the latest developments in the space of healthspan, lifespan and age reversal. In simple English! Do share and Stay tuned.
I would love to hear from you. I can be reached at agm@growyoungtech.com
1 https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20180203-the-ambitious-quest-to-cure-ageing-like-a-disease
2 https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landia/article/PIIS2213-8587(18)30214-6/fulltext
3 https://www.webmd.com/healthy-aging/story/is-there-a-cure-for-aging
4 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4471741/
5 https://www.tampabay.com/life-culture/2021/07/13/is-aging-a-disease-treating-it-like-one-could-save-us-trillions-study-says/
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