Is ageing a disease?

[Nihilego]

So, this is a really big question in my field of work right now, and one that lots of quite high-profile scientists are arguing over. Particularly in recent years, a lot of work in biological science has been focused on how ageing occurs at various levels. Now, several scientific journals exist focusing solely on ageing and fields of medicine centred around the molecular and cellular basis of ageing are emerging. However, whether or not ageing can truly be considered a "disease" is still a hotly debated topic.

Since it's a bit of an odd proposition at first, I'll do my best to highlight some points from both sides of the argument and let you guys take it from there. This is by no means an exhaustive list, though - in fact, I'm not at all an expert on this topic and I kinda came up with some of these just now.


Against:

- Ageing is a normal physiological process that happens to everyone, and therefore cannot be considered an abnormality.
- Presently, there are no widely-known and accepted mutations or pathogens that progress normal ageing, and the role of environmental factors in progression of ageing is not completely clear.
- Alone, ageing does not have many symptoms; arguments suggesting that ageing is a disease often rely on co-occurring diseases to come to this conclusion.
- There is a very high variability in the health of elderly people; ageing does not impact everybody in the same way, and therefore is not something that can be clearly defined as an illness with a clear set of symptoms.
- From an evolutionary standpoint, it does not make sense for organisms to tolerate a normal physiological process which is detrimental to their health.


For:

- Ageing is extremely strongly associated with a wide range of other pathological conditions, including but not limited to cancer, diabetes, osteoporosis and a host of cardiovascular diseases, and is sufficient to cause many of these diseases on its own.
- Molecular changes are observed in elderly cells compared to young cells, and some of these are associated with progression or initiation of age-associated diseases.
- Some rare diseases involve a very striking acceleration of ageing, and patients with these diseases have dramatically reduced lifespans.
- Other, very well-established diseases can arise as a result of normal physiological processes (eg., cancer), or can be asymptomatic on their own, acting instead by promoting progression of other diseases (eg, AIDS); therefore, these arguments do not exclude ageing from being considered a disease.


Discuss! (nerd)

 

[Esper]

The whole debate about aging being a disease implies that people would want to cure it, right? Which implies making people become able to live for a really long time. But if that's the case then how long should people live? Would be want people to be able to live forever if possible? Do people living today have the right to live forever since that would mean taking resources away from future generations?

 

[Nihilego]

The whole debate about aging being a disease implies that people would want to cure it, right?

Yes, and many people are trying to do just that - not only for cosmetic reasons ("age-defying" skincare products etc.) but also for the more useful aim to relieve the effects of serious age-associated diseases, such as those that I described in the first post.

Which implies making people become able to live for a really long time.

Perhaps. Remember, though, that "dying of old age" isn't a real thing. The molecular mechanisms behind ageing aren't very well-understood and it's not completely clear if antagonising them would truly result in a longer life; this would probably depend on if blocking ageing itself also blocks the progression of age-related diseases, or if these still occur regardless. There's evidence that goes both ways.

But if that's the case then how long should people live? Would be want people to be able to live forever if possible? Do people living today have the right to live forever since that would mean taking resources away from future generations?

All interesting questions. I was coming from the scientific standpoint, but the philosophical side of things is also important. I hope people who read this thread consider these, too.

 

[killer-curry]

I would think ageing process isn't a desease. First it's a human life cycle or it's a biological life cycle. We live till old and eventually will die one day. We cannot deny that.

Human's organ will ageing and we cannot do much about this. Only we can do is eat healthy and live happier, until the organ no longer functional.

No matter how hard scientist try to find a way to make people look younger , it would be not even possible enough to make human live over 100 years with pristine health condition. Or maybe in future people can live for that long time.

But I say it's not possible enough, that means technology will go even further advance and maybe scientists can find things in DNA which contains most important info about the cells so we maybe have some hope for a way that people could live longer. Science rocks people sometime.

 

[Pokemon Game Fan]

I don't think there's anything wrong with figuring out how to live as long as possible. Life is all we have, we should enjoy it as long as we can before going. I personally want to die in my 50s, for the reasons you stated. I don't want to develop all that stuff.

 

[Kanzler]

I get that if you define disease very broadly as a dysfunction of the body (leaving out abnormality) then, yes, ageing would fall under that definition. But I don't think dysfunction is sufficient to define disease. Amputees aren't generally considered to be diseased, but their amputation certainly constitutes a dysfunction.

I don't think association with other diseases is enough to define something as a disease. I don't think that somebody with a genetic predisposition to arthritis is considered to have a disease until they get that arthritis diagnosis. If these two cases are analogous, we shouldn't consider age-related predisposition to osteoporosis, diabetes, etc, to be a disease either.

Although there are diseases that are characterized by accelerated ageing, I don't think that supports "retrospectively" defining ageing as disease. Gigantism is considered to be a medical condition and is characterized by accelerated growth, but we wouldn't go back and define growth as disease.

I'm not so sure if it makes sense to consider cancer to be the result of normal physiological processes. If I remember correctly, cancer results from the abnormal expression of oncogenes and tumour suppressor genes. Genetic processes are certainly normal but I think mutations are firmly in the abnormal. Otherwise, Down syndrome, cystic fibrosis, and other genetic disorders should equally be considered to arise from "normal physiological processes".

I don't think the presence/absence of symptoms is a good criterium for disease - rather the presence/absence of dysfunction better hits the nail on the head. AIDS is absolutely characterized by reduced immune system function and can be defined as an abnormally low T-cell count.

So far I hesitate at the thought of considering ageing to be a disease.

 

[gimmepie]

I am far from being an expert, but I'm going to have to go with "no". You said so yourself, ageing is a natural biological process that occurs in multi-cellular animals. A disease is something born due to
1) A defect in our biological make-up or
2) An aggressive outside factor (bacteria, viruses and toxins).

Basically a disease is the body's reaction to negative stimuli like the ones I mentioned above.

 

[Her]

It may be easier to consider ageing as a condition, an inherent affliction present in life, rather than a 'disease'. As gimmepie noted, the strict definition of disease doesn't provide much legroom.

If we come to a scientific point where the ageing process were to be considered a mere medical possibility rather than a natural absolute, I would be perfectly fine with being of the view that overcoming ageing is simply overcoming a biological threshold, the conquering of our degradation being akin to vaccinating death itself. But until we are able to achieve that, growing old is just a way of life and nothing more.

 

[Pinkie-Dawn]

If aging is considered a disease, would the mortality rate still remain the same as people die from old age (without looking old at all)?

 

[Her]

If aging is considered a disease, would the mortality rate still remain the same as people die from old age (without looking old at all)?

I would imagine that by the time we got to a point where everyone who died of 'old age' looked, say, 25, the mortality rate for humankind of a whole outside of war, murder, accidents or natural disaster would long have been dramatically reduced all round. I suppose we could only ever get a proper answer in a practical situation, but I would think that death from 'old age' and its associated symptoms would be heavily reduced due to the medical procedures of the time that I can't even begin to comprehend.

 

[polymorphism]

Well I think we need to think about this in terms of the Hayflick Limit (this is what results in "aging"). Based on the Hayflick Limit I'm feeling more pushed in the direction of aging being a disease because it's essentially a cell being unable to replicate itself properly and we consider other blood disorders (although to be fair the Hayflick Limit applies to more than just blood cells) a disease.

 

[Lunaris Adamantine]

A disease is essentially just an abnormality that causes unwanted effects to the host. It's true that aging isn't exactly someone anyone wants, but it's hardly an abnormality. One hundred percent of living organisms age, so would you say that they are all infected with this disease?

And if you're going to call aging a disease, you might as well call evolution a disease as well. That may seem to make less sense, but evolution is literally a mutation in your genes. Something abnormal that causes a new effect within it's host. When it's bad, we call it a genetic disease, when it's good we call it evolution. But in reality, they are essentially the same thing that just has different results.

So yeah, if aging is a disease, we have been in a pandemic since the first organism was born.

 

[Kanzler]

Disease: A disorder of structure or function in a human, animal, or plant, especially one that produces specific signs or symptoms or that affects a specific location and is not simply a direct result of physical injury.

A mutation of the genes is a disorder of structure. Evolution is the gradual development of all living organisms from a form to another. Once the organism has evolved, their structure changes and continues to be that way until it evolves again. Within that period, every disorder is called a disease.

Well, that's taking it a bit far. Most mutations are hardly disorders or dysfunctional. You can consider blonde hair to be a mutation of black hair, so are all blondes diseased?

 

[Kanzler]

But blonde hair is not a structural disorder or functional. I see your point though and before we go on a limbo; the point was that there diseases that, in a way causes ageing.

You said that "a mutation of the genes is a disorder of structure". Blonde hair is a genetic mutation. So either blonde hair is a disorder of structure, or your initial assertion that a mutation is a disorder of structure is not necessarily true. The reality is the latter.

 

[Kanzler]

Like Lunaris said, evolution is also a mutation of the genes. The genetic mutation that resulted in blonde hair was the effect of evolution. We can argue about that if you want, but again: Are we going back on topic?

Evolution doesn't "cause" mutations, mutations cause evolution. If you're going to use these terms, then you should use them how they're commonly understood. You made an assertion mutations are disorders, and that's simply wrong because there are plenty of examples (of which I provided one) of mutations that aren't disorders. And here's another one: if you're genetically predisposed to cancer due to mutations but don't have a tumour, then I don't think anyone would consider you to have a disorder or disease. Some of what you're saying doesn't make sense. I'm going off-topic because I want to correct the misunderstandings that you have about evolution and mutation.

 

[Nah]

As I understand it a mutation is simply just a random/accidental change in the DNA sequence and that's it. The word mutation often has a negative connotation because usually when it's talked about amongst the general populace it's in regards to a bad mutation (various genetic diseases, Hollywood mutant monsters, etc), but there's also good mutations and ones that aren't good or bad.

I don't know enough biology to get into the science aspect of this much more than that though.

I imagine though that if ageing is something that can be "cured" and people could effectively live forever provided they don't get blown up or something, many people would probably really like the idea. Most living things greatly fear their own death, and humans are no different, so the idea of living forever sounds great on one hand.....but I don't think you really want to live literally forever.

 

[Esper]

Yes, and many people are trying to do just that - not only for cosmetic reasons ("age-defying" skincare products etc.) but also for the more useful aim to relieve the effects of serious age-associated diseases, such as those that I described in the first post.

I don't know enough about biology to say whether aging is a disease, but I'm all for treating it like one if the goal is to make people not deteriorate as they get older. Maybe it's my lack of understanding though, but my impression is that all the things that commonly affect someone who is old are basically the effects of accumulated damage over the years. That makes me think that to stop aging you'd have to be able to heal/prevent all the kinds of things that harm us over the years, like the damage to livers from alcohol or the damage to the knees from sports or the damage to cells from sun exposure. That seems a tall order.

 

[King Elizabello]

Definitely aging is not an illness. Aging is natural and cannot be stopped under normal methods. However, i think aging it's not bad at all because is the end of your journey and the beginning of someone else's journey so i think if you try to enjoy your life as much as you can then it is not bad at all. What you will realise is that all those years you will see that you try to fix your outside and that the inside is the important of all. That is something that the sooner you understand the better. I don't mean to look like you are hit by a truck but to try to cleanse yourself from negative and bad thoughts and relish what you have no matter if they are less or a lot. Hope it helps.

P.S The special method if you don't wanna age is to become an android in other words a human robot lol.