3 ms·
Sort of connected to this, but from the other end, our requirement to classify everything as a disease has pretty terrible repercussions across society. As an
by leoedin 14y ago
Sort of connected to this, but from the other end, our requirement to classify everything as a disease has pretty terrible repercussions across society.
As an example, my mum's a doctor and has worked in wards in which old people die. There's a requirement for a "cause of death" for each person to die in a hospital. Often this was given as pneumonia or similar for people who essentially died of old age. Unfortunately, someone looked at the statistics and discovering that lots of people were dying of pneumonia decided that it needed to be treated, and so now with aggressive treatments people who are at the very end of their lives are kept alive until something else comes along and kills them. The reality is, once your body has reached a certain point likelyhood of survival falls very quickly, and treating a single disease is simply a very brief and ineffective way of dealing with that.
Interestingly, although human lifespan has been increasing year on year, it's not an indication that we're actually living longer. What's happened is that things that kill you in early to mid life - heart attacks in 50 year olds, viruses and infections and injuries that 20 years ago would have been deadly - have been reduced. The outlook in terms of years of life for someone that actually manages to reach 80 or 90 has increased very little - perhaps 1 or 2 years over the last 50. (I read this somewhere but I've lost the source - I'll try and find it).
The single thing to treat, the thing that is the precursor to all other things, is ageing.
- reasonattlm 14y agoThe life expectancy increase in old age is actually better than you say, and that may be due to great improvements in treating heart disease and cancer. http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2006/07/on-elder-life-expectancy.php http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2006/07/on-elder-life-exp... It is true, however, that the bulk of historical increases in life span at birth are due to the reduction in infectious disease burden. Infectious disease both kills people young and adds systematic damage to the survivors such that their life expectancy is reduced. http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2004/12/plasticity-of-l.php http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2004/12/plasticity-of-l.p... So the progress [in life expectancy prior to 1950] was largely due to saving lives below age sixty-five, especially children. But after 1950 the improvements to life expectancy have largely been due to saving lives after age sixty-five, to this extension of life, to this giving - adding years to the life of older people. So it's been a remarkable shift, and the shift has been due to the fact that since 1950 we've had various kinds of interventions that could help save people from heart disease, that could intervene with various infectious diseases that were killing very old people, so the antibiotics and so on helped older people a lot.
- bad_user 14y agoThe single thing to treat, the thing that is the precursor to all other things, is ageing. I do not agree. My grandfather died at 99 years old. He was able to work his land until 98, lived a full life and died with no regrets. We were sad of his passing, but we accepted his death and were happy that he died fast, without much struggling. You know what's really sad? A 22 year old boy dying of an unnoticed heart disease that led to a sudden cardiac arrest. This happened to an acquaintance of mine and it was freaking sad, as this boy was robbed of a chance to live his life. Ageing is not the problem. The problem is that we are nowhere close to treating chronic diseases like cancer or heart diseases. The problem is that we don't even know for sure the cause of obesity or diabetes, passing baseless assumptions and flawed studies around that cause more harm than good. The problem is that we have no idea how to treat allergies and based on recent trends allergic asthma will soon be considered an epidemy. The problem is that we haven't even cured the freaking common cold. Medicine, as far as I'm concerned, is still at the stage of alchemy. Dreaming of increasing the maximum lifespan or even of immortality is a romantic notion, but I would be happy if young people had a chance of living their life, instead of dying of diseases that have been around forever.
- melling 14y agoI think your simple way of looking at this is actually part of the problem. If you want to get beyond the alchemy stage then more money needs to be put into research. For some people, ageing is a problem and they will spend lots of money to alleviate the symptoms, and to prevent a "premature" death. There are many companies who will invest lots of money in an effort to capture this segment of the population. By doing the basic research for one segment, you are actually building a foundation of knowledge that will benefit all segments. For example, a device that can monitor the heart of an 80 year old can also be used on a 20 year old.
- orangecat 14y agoMy grandfather died at 99 years old. He was able to work his land until 98, lived a full life and died with no regrets. Your grandfather was much luckier than most. Ageing is not the problem. The problem is that we are nowhere close to treating chronic diseases like cancer or heart diseases. Very few 25 year olds suffer from cancer or heart disease.