Is ageing a disease?
Can ageing be cured?
The Great Age Reboot: The trend is clear. An average of three months is being added to life expectancy every year. Being young is fast, fun, and exciting. We live in a society where youth is revered. Forever Young! We have an Obsession with Never Growing Old!
The challenge is adding five years of healthy disability-free life to each of the senior citizens by 2035. Health is not automatic. The effort we put into exercise from our younger days and diet — of eating with heart in mind will determine how we age.
Much of the global burden of disease is associated with behaviours — overeating, smoking, excessive alcohol, and no physical inactivity — people recognize as health-harming and yet continue to engage in, even when undesired consequences emerge.
You really are ‘only as old as you feel’!
Most people feel younger or older than they really are — this is ‘subjective age! The subjective age explains why some people appear to flourish as they age — while others fade. It also predicts health outcomes, including your risk of premature death. Most people feel about eight years younger than their actual chronological age. If you feel 8–13 years older than your actual age results in an 18–25% greater risk of death and greater disease burden! Your subjective age can better predict your health than the date on your birth certificate.
Can you delay ageing by refusing to act your age?
We are all going to grow old — that is inevitable and immutable. Genetics may determine 20–30% of our longevity at most. People who have a positive attitude about ageing live an average of 7 years longer than those who don’t. There is no biological reason for any of us not to live to 100 or beyond. But we continue to pull up severely short of that benchmark.
India’s oldest man — 127-year-old Swami Sivananda born in 1896 and is very much alive and active! Last year he was honoured with the Padma Shri Award. I am striving to give my body and mind what they need to come as close as possible to that 127-year benchmark for longevity set for us by Shivananda Swamy. I don’t expect to get there because there is a lot of pre-40 life damage done to make that happen. But, I expect to come closer by setting a 100+ year goal. I have no illusions about the fact that it could all be over tomorrow. But Right now, I have this moment.
Ageing is not for the faint of hearts, but I still recommend it as it is a better alternative to death. Not everyone grows to be old. Many die before their time. Aches and pains and memory lapses — are hard to accept. Ageing also brings in frailty, disease and death and cognitive decline that’s mild at best, incapacitating at worst. Ageing’s burdens are inevitable — a debt owed for being alive for too long!
Heart disease. Cancer. Diabetes. Dementia and Death!
Researchers spend billions of dollars every year trying to eradicate these medical scourges. Yet even with all the cures to all chronic conditions, we still have to die! That’s because you haven’t stopped ageing! The desire to ‘cure all disease’ is laudable. $3 billion is a nice, albeit small amount of money in the grand scheme of medical research funding. Can we really find cures for all diseases?
Researchers and Scientists have said that humans are unlikely to ever live beyond 125. Swami has proved them wrong! Medicines grouped under Senolytics — Rapamycin and Metformin, have been shown to be capable of purging morbid cells and rejuvenate the body!
I believe that ageing should be seen as a disease that is universal and a multisystem process. 32% of total Medical spending goes to the last 2 years of the life of patients with chronic illnesses, without any significant improvement to their quality of life.
As the human lifespan expands, more people are living to 100 years and beyond. There was a two-and-a-half-year average gain per decade for the last 140 years. Within the next 10 to 20 years the world will rocket into new norms of aging, new life spans, and new ways of living. The changes will be radical. The jump — from 81 years to 108- Twenty-seven or more years of living in just 10 years — is unprecedented!
The concept of “curing ageing” might seem lofty! The power to curtail some of ageing’s negative effects on our biology may be within reach. The results are hard to overlook — increasing “healthy” life expectancy by just 2.6 years could result in an $83 trillion value to the economy. It would reduce the incidents of cancer, dementia, cardiovascular disease and frailty.
Treat causes of ageing rather than the effects of ageing — could be the secret to combatting many health care costs traditionally associated with getting older. That is only half the story. The number of people reaching 80 years has increased greatly. The number reaching 90 or 100 has not increased in the same proportion. The reality is that while we live longer. Those extra years aren’t necessarily spent in good health.
Ageing is being looked upon as a physiological process! We should pathologize ageing. View it as a disease that can be cured. We treat the gradual build-up of lipids and cholesterol to prevent heart problems, we should try and treat the damages caused by ageing.
International Classification of Disease provides the codes used to classify and report medical diagnoses and procedures. As of now a code exists for age-related muscle wasting — sarcopenia, but there are no comprehensive codes covering the age-related wearing out of other organs.
The desire for immortality has been a common pursuit. “One in three people born today will live to 100. Old age is 15 years. older than you! As a person gets older, the wish to live forever grows deeper! Immortality would be desirable as long as the good things in life and good health continue to be available to us.