Is aging a disease?

Thoughts?

 

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I don't regard death as a disease.

 

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No.

Please read if you want more information.

http://www.senescence.info/cells.html

 

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No, aging is normal.

 

Aging may or may not be considered a disease depending on the definitions you are using. There are two aspects to aging, as there are in just above every human trait: nature and nurture (ie. genetic influences and environmental influences).

Aging is under genetic control. Our cells have a finite lifespan as does the organism as a whole. No matter how well we look after ourselves, our bodies will slowly deteriorate, shut down and die. We are genetically programmed to die. Thus, we can label aging as a natural occurrence and not a disease.

However, there is an environmental aspect to aging. This is predominantly driven by the accumulation of mutations. For instance, the gradual accumulation of mitochondrial mutations over our lifetime is thought to be responsible for our gradual loss of metabolic capacity. Our skin and muscle gradually lose the ability to regenerate as we age, thought to be partly due to accumulated mutations in their respective regenerative stem cells.

Now, whilst it isn’t possible to avoid all mutation events as they occur naturally and spontaneously, there are a variety of environmental factors that can increase our mutation load and that will accelerate the age-related decline of our tissues and organs (if they don’t also cause cancer). Poor diet and alcohol consumption are known to increase the production of reactive oxygen species as a by-product of metabolism. ROS can damage DNA. Smoking directly introduces mutagens into the body. Radiation exposure, including UV radiation from the Sun, can stimulate mutation. So if some age-related decline can be avoided by lifestyle changes, then maybe we can consider aging as a disease (at least to a degree).

Then, of course, there are premature aging syndromes that are definitely regarded as (genetic) diseases. The most well-known is progeria.

 

A really pessimistic way to look at this is to say : maintaining your health is actually just dying at the slowest rate possible.

 

No we are given 120 years to live in good health in this generation. We used to live alot longer 4000+ years ago. The limit before used to be 999 years but we lost that blessing.


Peace.

 

Death is as glorious as Birth.


Peace.

 

No preference , as it happens to every one . There is no one single person in this world who is not effected by it .

 

It's a good thing that you aren't spouting that rubbish in one of the science forums.

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Indeed. Morbid, but true.

 

It may be worth noting that average longevity is increasing all the time. In the UK 200 years ago, average was 40 years. Today it is about double that. Even in third world countries, most have an average longevity of 55 plus.

 

Agin is one of those aspects of biology that doesn't make sense under survival of the fittest.

 

I wonder why elderly people - my 2 grandmas when they were alive, and now my parents - need less sleep? Like just 4 or 5 hrs overnight, and they are wide awake after? I would have thought they start to need the sleep more at that age, so would naturally sleep longer.

Why does nature not let them get more sleep? That's the part of aging I find unnatural.

 

so the only reason that normal aging isn't considered a genetic disease is because it's normal? i think it would become a disease if someone developed a cure for it.

an interesting side note...i polled people in the religion forum once as to whether or not they'd like to live forever, and the vast majority said "no". perhaps that's why it's not perceived of as a disease. perhaps inherently, or somehow, we all know what lies ahead for humanity, and so we perceive the culmination of aging, death, as a relief instead.

i think the reasons we want to die, are the same reasons we do die.

 

There are assorted hypotheses for why we age and die.
From my reading, it appears that the most widely accepted one is the balance between resources used for body maintenance and for reproduction.

All living things suffer damage to their bodies throughout life. Much of the damage is genetic or cellular. It takes resources such as food and energy to repair that damage. Those resources could be used for reproduction instead.

Some species evolve to expend few resources on repair, and instead reproduce madly from a young age. eg. rodents. Others reproduce more slowly and devote more resources to repair. eg. humans, and bowhead whales. This appears to be a result of intelligence, because long life is required to support a long learning period.

There is no reason in theory why a species such as Homo sapiens should not expend enough resources so as to stop ageing. However, in evolutionary terms, where successful reproduction is the most important thing, there is no advantage to doing so.

 

Yes, there is - our genes.

 

Herc

You missed the point, which is that evolution would change those genes if there was a sufficiently potent reason to extend lifespan indefinitely. No such reason exists, and evolution permits us to age and die.

 

Older persons have more difficulty sleeping the night through due to the accumulation of aches and pains, the need to urinate more often and lighter sleep patterns. Many also fall into poor sleep habits, like eating or watching tv in bed.

Many others, like myself, take an afternoon nap so they can get away with less sleep at night. This as it is the total amount of sleep that is important more than that it is done all at once in the night.

We have evolved to live longer and we are not done evolving yet. Our technology - medical technology inclusive - is part of this evolution. The only way to see how long we end up living is to take a shot at living as long as we would like.

We all know that things like smoking cigarettes, eating lots of fat and sugar and not exercising will shorten our lives. Conversely, establishing a healthy life style can increase your life span - like Jack LaLane or Helio Grace did. If Jack had gotten the pneumonia shot he may even have lived beyond 96, we do have a lot of control over this already by taking suitable precautions.

 

I strongly disagree with your question.

 

aging is the breakdown (oxidative stress) of DNA overtime so your cells cant duplicate at the quality they once were. As the telemerase breaks down from oxidative stress your dna starts to break down. That's why antioxidants slow down the process of aging. Also calorie restriction has been shown to slow down aging.