Are We Ill Because We Age?

Abstract

Growing elderly populations are an increasingly serious health and socio-economic concern for modern societies. Science has made tremendous progress in the understanding of aging itself which somehow helped medicine to extend life expectancies. With the increase of the life expectancy, the incidence of chronic age-related diseases (ARDs) has also increased. A new approach trying to solve this problem is the concept of geroscience. This concept implies that the aging process itself is the common cause of all ARDs. The corollary and consequence of such thinking is that we can and should treat aging itself. How to move this into the medical practice is a big challenge, but if we consider aging as a disease the problem is solved. However, as there is no common definition of what aging is, what its causes are, why it occurs, and what target(s) of interventions should be, it is impossible to definitively conclude that aging is a disease. On the contrary, aging may be strongly considered not to be a disease and as such should not be treated; nonetheless, aging is likely amenable to optimization of changes/adaptations at an individual level to achieve a better functional healthspan.