Aging as a disease that affects society

Highlights

• Treating age-related disease at the end stage is not a viable strategy
• Aging is not recognized as a disease
• Recognizing age as a disease would boost the development of prevention interventions
  

Introduction

The past century has seen enormous changes when it comes to technology and the  progress of humanity. This has resulted in an unprecedented reduction in early mortality and eradication of many common infectious diseases as well as extreme poverty levels across many countries. This has bought large portions of the population in the world more years of fairly good health and life expectancies are now over 80 years in the wealthier parts of the world. 

Aging is still not classified as a disease

Diseases of aging, such as cancer, heart disease, and dementia that are rarely seen in young adults are now by far the most common causes of death. It accounts for 90% of the deaths in western society while the risks of dying at younger ages have never been lower in history (SCB data). The risk of dying in one's 20s across many European countries is so low that assuming no age-related risk in mortality occurred, one would live well over a thousand years. 

Since the process of aging is what generates the diseases that largely make up the current health-care burden, attempts to intervene in it have been proposed. Targeting aging itself means treating it as a disease where one can intervene in order to create impact.  In order to understand what is meant by aging being a disease, it is important to differ between chronological and biological aging. Chronological aging is the desirable passage of time that makes people build experiences and wisdom, while biological aging is the undesirable decline in body function.

What is aging?

Biological aging is a process that is defined by the accumulation of damage to cells and organ systems throughout the body. It is the outcome of the failure of the body to achieve perfect repair with the passage of time and since humans, until very recently, nearly always died at young ages, there was no evolutionary pressure to make the body last longer. This is called the disposable soma theory of aging.

The biochemical processes that eventually lead to the diseases of old age are ongoing already in a young person, however calling them sick at that point would not achieve any purpose since they are enjoying youthful good health. 

However, at a certain time point the damage accumulation exceeds a threshold level that when reached starts leading to pathological consequences. The function of the tissues in the body gets impaired and when it is clinically measurable we can say the person is no longer functioning at their optimum. 

‍