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Should Aging be treated as a disease?

  • 13-06-2015 8:12pm
    #1
    sxt
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,756 ✭✭✭


    "If aging is seen as a disease, it changes how we respond to it. For example, it becomes the duty of doctors to treat it," said David Gems, a biogerontologist

    At the moment, drug companies and scientists keen to develop their research on aging into tangible results are hampered by regulators in the United States and Europe who will license medicines only for specific diseases, not for something as general as aging.

    "Because aging is not viewed as a disease, the whole process of bringing drugs to market can't be applied to drugs that treat aging. This creates a disincentive to pharmaceutical companies to develop drugs to treat it," said Gems.

    The term disease broadly refers to any condition that impairs the normal functioning of the body

    I think that Aging should be treated as a disease

    Should aging be treated as a disease? 13 votes

    Yes,Aging should be treated as a disease
    0% 0 votes
    No,Aging should not be treated as a disease
    100% 13 votes


Comments

  • #2
    Kovu
    Closed Accounts Posts: 14,241 ✭✭✭✭Kovu


    sxt wrote: »
    ...

    A compelling argument OP. I really have to say I agree with your views on this.


  • #3
    the groutch
    Closed Accounts Posts: 16,096 ✭✭✭✭the groutch


    I have no words












































































    just like you


  • #4
    Liamalone
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,966 ✭✭✭Liamalone


    Totally concur here


  • #5
    Gran Hermano
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,330 ✭✭✭Gran Hermano


    +1


  • #6
    The_Valeyard
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,452 ✭✭✭✭The_Valeyard


    Ageing is the most natural thing in the world. As long as it's not Benjamin Button style.


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  • #7
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    the groutch wrote: »
    I have no words

    -deleting needless paragraphs-

    Just like you

    Can people please not do this? It's not funny, it's not witty, and at least 99.99% of the time, the line at the end isn't even worth it.


  • #8
    fedor.2.
    Registered Users Posts: 1,944 ✭✭✭fedor.2.


    Don't worry OP, unlike some people here, I don't care about your opinion


  • #9
    Bongalongherb
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,766 ✭✭✭Bongalongherb


    I suppose you could say that ageing is a wasting disease over a long period of time.

    In all honesty though, 75/80 years is a long time, and would a person really want to live till 160 ?. I wouldn't.


  • #10
    Swanley
    Registered Users Posts: 75 ✭✭Swanley


    I dunno. I think we are seeing the result of the electroencephalographically idea that the floccinaucinihilipilification of pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism is just as important than pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. It’s hard to know.


  • #11
    TheBrinch
    Registered Users Posts: 291 ✭✭TheBrinch


    Maybe the air we breath is poisonous and simply takes 60-80 years to kill us!


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  • #12
    fedor.2.
    Registered Users Posts: 1,944 ✭✭✭fedor.2.


    Swanley wrote: »
    I dunno. I think we are seeing the result of the electroencephalographically idea that the floccinaucinihilipilification of pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism is just as important than pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. It’s hard to know.

    That's easy for you to say


  • #13
    Bongalongherb
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,766 ✭✭✭Bongalongherb


    Swanley wrote: »
    I dunno. I think we are seeing the result of the electroencephalographically idea that the floccinaucinihilipilification of pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism is just as important than pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. It’s hard to know.

    Jezz, you're way more stoned than me. That's some serious bullsh!t right there.


  • #14
    the groutch
    Closed Accounts Posts: 16,096 ✭✭✭✭the groutch


    Bongalongherb wrote: »
    Jezz, you're way more stoned than me. That's some serious bullsh!t right there.

    they're all perfectly cromulent words


  • #15
    kneemos
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,454 ✭✭✭✭kneemos


    Bongalongherb wrote: »
    Jezz, you're way more stoned than me. That's some serious bullsh!t right there.


    Shouldn't marginalise someone's opinion.
    It's valid and worthy of acceptance.


  • #16
    sxt
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,756 ✭✭✭sxt


    Bongalongherb wrote: »
    I suppose you could say that ageing is a wasting disease over a long period of time.

    In all honesty though, 75/80 years is a long time, and would a person really want to live till 160 ?. I wouldn't.

    If Aging was treatable through gene and stem cell therapy etc and you were as healthy at 160 as you are today? I think you would want to live. Most definitely


  • #17
    Bongalongherb
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,766 ✭✭✭Bongalongherb


    Well blow me away... A jocular coinage, apparently by pupils at Eton College. floccinaucinihilipilification I thought that was a load of garbage, but it seems to be a real thing, well blow me away again. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/floccinaucinihilipilification
    they're all perfectly cromulent words

    As I have just found out, amazing.


  • #18
    kneemos
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,454 ✭✭✭✭kneemos


    Bongalongherb wrote: »
    Well blow me away... A jocular coinage, apparently by pupils at Eton College. floccinaucinihilipilification I thought that was a load of garbage, but it seems to be a real thing, well blow me away again. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/floccinaucinihilipilification



    As I have just found out, amazing.



    Oh the jocularity.


  • #19
    Bongalongherb
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,766 ✭✭✭Bongalongherb


    sxt wrote: »
    If Aging was treatable through gene and stem cell therapy etc and you were as healthy at 160 as you are today? I think you would want to live. Most definitely

    In that context I would, yes, but we are nowhere near that yet unfortunately. I don't fancy the idea of having to use a simmer frame to hold me up against gravity, I'd rather be in an eternal sleep.


  • #20
    Swanley
    Registered Users Posts: 75 ✭✭Swanley


    HugsiePie wrote: »
    What a load of mumbo jumbo-pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis is so much more vital to our existence than the floccinaucinihilipilification of pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism.

    Maybe you’re right, who knows? I guess what I’m trying to say is, Parastratiosphecomyia Stratiosphecomyioides is essentially a horse fly - and no matter what you view the deinstitutionalisation of it all, all you’re ever going to have left is a bunch of counter-revolutionaries! Counter-revolutionaries that can't tell the difference between pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis and the floccinaucinihilipilification of pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism. Nobody has time for that. Not me anyway!


  • #21
    Bongalongherb
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,766 ✭✭✭Bongalongherb


    An interconnectionalpocapitaloplogy of reason within your comment indeed.

    It seems that I just created a new word.

    Your search - interconnectionalpocapitaloplogy - did not match any documents.

    I'm a genius.

    Well, you are dying from the day you are born, so I suppose you could say it is a disease that kills you.


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  • #22
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    Have a Google of oxygen paradox, oxidation aging or free radical theory of aging ;) it's intresting, a lot of articles about them online haven't read them all so can't vouch for one particular article :)


  • #23
    hatrickpatrick
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,797 ✭✭✭✭hatrickpatrick


    Absolutely IMO. I'm sick of hearing "old age" used as a cause of death whenever I ask what someone elderly died from. As long as that mindset exists, life extension (which is becoming more and more possible) will never be treated with the seriousness it needs to be for us to make progress.

    If we still regarded cancer as just something inevitable that's impossible to change, nobody would be working on treatments for it. Same goes for anything which causes a decline in quality of life.


  • #24
    Buona Fortuna
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,507 ✭✭✭Buona Fortuna


    This, is the end of the world.

    We all stay 21 years old. Shag, drink, fight, abuse substances and drop dead at 23. Bingo. The world ends.


  • #25
    Bongalongherb
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,766 ✭✭✭Bongalongherb


    Buona Fortuna wrote: »
    This, is the end of the world.

    We all stay 21 years old. Shag, drink, fight, abuse substances and drop dead at 23. Bingo. The world ends.

    No. The world carries on shagging,drinking,fighting and abusing substances, but it is the individual that will end.


    I get the strange feeling that maybe I'm being slightly politically correct here ?


  • #26
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 92,532 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    sxt wrote: »
    The term disease broadly refers to any condition that impairs the normal functioning of the body

    I think that Aging should be treated as a disease
    LOL

    These days the main thing treated is an excess of assets in the elderly.

    The amount spent on extending life in old people with wealth or good insurance far exceeds that spend earlier in life. And in many cases it's about extending life rather than providing a decent quality of life.


    Our health system can't provide all treatments to everyone. It's simple economics. There are legal arguments about life support. But there's a much simpler moral argument. There's no point in keeping someone alive long term in intensive care if it means that denying it to A&E patients who would only need it for a short time. BTW I first saw that argument with regard to pre-mature babies so not ageism.

    Once you've reached your three score and ten your survival odds drop. And worst of all the deck is stacked against you by then. Socio economic group and lifestyle will have set your path. It's too expensive to change things by then.

    It's pretty much the same way we spend far far more on university students than on primary ones, even though all the research , by universities of course, shows that investment in primary is way more cost effective.

    One key difference is that elderly people vote more than students and primary kids won't be voting until current TD's have secured a pension.


  • #27
    sxt
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,756 ✭✭✭sxt


    Capt'n Midnight wrote: »
    LOL

    These days the main thing treated is an excess of assets in the elderly.

    The amount spent on extending life in old people with wealth or good insurance far exceeds that spend earlier in life. And in many cases it's about extending life rather than providing a decent quality of life.


    Our health system can't provide all treatments to everyone. It's simple economics. There are legal arguments about life support. But there's a much simpler moral argument. There's no point in keeping someone alive long term in intensive care if it means that denying it to A&E patients who would only need it for a short time. BTW I first saw that argument with regard to pre-mature babies so not ageism.

    Once you've reached your three score and ten your survival odds drop. And worst of all the deck is stacked against you by then. Socio economic group and lifestyle will have set your path. It's too expensive to change things by then.

    It's pretty much the same way we spend far far more on university students than on primary ones, even though all the research , by universities of course, shows that investment in primary is way more cost effective.

    One key difference is that elderly people vote more than students and primary kids won't be voting until current TD's have secured a pension.



    Precisely!. It is a waste of money trying to treat the sympthoms of Aging .You need to tackle Aging itself. Aging is what causes you to get the diseases in old age! You can't fix the diseases of old age unless you tackle Aging. You could spend 10 million trillion dollars tying to cure the diseases of old age but it is completely futile unless you find a cure for Aging! Aging is what causes you to get sick in the first place!. Alot of people don't seem to understand this.


    You can't fix Alzeihmers or any age related disease unless you fix /repair the damage caused by Aging first!


  • #28
    c_man
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,436 ✭✭✭c_man


    The only cure is to render the Earth utterly uninhabitable. I concur with the Op that this is something we should aim for.

    Burn 'em all.


  • #29
    Hans Bricks
    Registered Users Posts: 850 ✭✭✭Hans Bricks


    Dunno why people are so eager to embrace death at roughly the late seventies/ eighties age group. You have eternity to be dead. Think of what we'll all be missing out on in the future.


  • #30
    scouttio
    Registered Users Posts: 386 ✭✭scouttio


    Bongalongherb wrote: »
    I suppose you could say that ageing is a wasting disease over a long period of time.

    In all honesty though, 75/80 years is a long time, and would a person really want to live till 160 ?. I wouldn't.

    I would most certainly want to live until I was 160, but only if the actual aging process slowed down. I mean I wouldnt really want to spend 80 years ****ting myself and forgetting the names of everyone in my family


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  • #31
    Sunnyisland
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,562 ✭✭✭✭Sunnyisland


    I am getting to old for these threads...


  • #32
    sxt
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,756 ✭✭✭sxt


    scouttio wrote: »
    I would most certainly want to live until I was 160, but only if the actual aging process slowed down. I mean I wouldnt really want to spend 80 years ****ting myself and forgetting the names of everyone in my family

    When Aging is figured out, and it will be. That is inevitable. Google aren't working on it for ****s and giggles. You will be 160 years old and could be as fit as Rafeal Nadal was when he was 25.


    If you defeat aging you do not get the sympthoms of old age period.


  • #33
    ThinkProgress
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,634 ✭✭✭ThinkProgress


    Life is the disease... aging is the cure! ;)


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