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Just how bad are we at treating age-related diseases?
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- mattmaroon 1y agoTLDR: very bad.
- cyanydeez 1y agoIts good to know the same forces making software terrible are at work in the pharma business
- QuadmasterXLII 1y agoAnything that we are good at treating doesn’t seem like an age related disease anymore, but we’re really clearing out the scourges if you look at historical cause of death statistics. We haven’t made any progress on Alzheimer’s, and have conquered yellow fever, consumption, diabetes, knee failure, glaucoma, smoking related lung cancer, prostate cancer, hookworm, environmental lead poisoning, environmental arsenic poisoning, black lung, breast cancer, and syphilis. So, if you know someone old and suffering, its probably alzheimers.
- piombisallow 1y agoMost of the things you listed aren't aging related
- QuadmasterXLII 1y ago“Aging related” just means we don’t know what causes it, and yes we are much better at treating things when we know their cause. For example, right now parkinsons is aging related and we can’t do a thing about it, but there is increasing evidence that it is caused by some pollutant or toxin. If we find the toxin, then parkinsons will stop being age related. Mesothelioma is a historical case of this: for 100 years it was an untreatable aging related disease, it’s now obviously not an aging related disease, and the treatment is don’t breath asbestos.
- jajko 1y ago> So, if you know someone old and suffering, its probably alzheimers. Thats very far from reality, I presume you don't know many old people or speak to them about their ailments?
- AnimalMuppet 1y agoYou're right that there is far more to it than Alzheimers. Still, Quadmaster has half a point. It's probably not consumption (tuberculosis), or hookworm. It's much less likely than it was to be black lung. Even smoking is decreasing, though it will take another generation for that to show up in the old people. So we're making progress. But we don't see it, because that becomes the new normal, and we see all these remaining things that cause problems for old people.
- close04 1y agoTB killed 1.25 million in 2023 and the WHO considers it the world’s leading cause of death from a single infectious agent, outpaced only temporarily by COVID.
- GoatInGrey 1y agoIt's safe to say that they were speaking from the perspective of developed countries where the mortality rate of TB is roughly 0.2 per 100,000. Which makes the case that we know how to make it statistically insignificant, but the infrastructure to apply that knowledge is not perfectly distributed.
- close04 1y ago> they were speaking from the perspective of developed countries But that's just creatively selecting the data that supports the point. You can do that with everything else. We solved a lot of things "in the lab" or "in mice". Did you know that we conquered Alzheimer's? It's safe to say I mean in countries like Guinea-Bissau, Somalia or Chad with under 100 cases per 100k people.
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- genezeta 1y agoParkinson's fairly frequent too.
- close04 1y ago> and have conquered yellow fever, consumption, diabetes, knee failure, glaucoma, smoking related lung cancer, prostate cancer, hookworm, environmental lead poisoning, environmental arsenic poisoning, black lung, breast cancer, and syphilis. What's your definition of "conquered"? In the US breast cancer is the most common type of cancer, and together with lung cancers account for ~500k cases each year. 100k of those people will die within 5 years. Now we created new issues to replace the old. Microplastic, PFAS, antibiotic resistance, obesity, etc. And my knees want to have a word with your assessment :).
- Qem 1y agoI also wouldn't count prostate cancer on the "conquered" group, as recent news about the great Scott Adams reminds us.
- aesclepius 1y ago[flagged]
- Qem 1y agoHe's a flawed human. But his masterpiece, Dilbert, is a gift to humanity. I hope the legacy of his masterpiece will last much longer than that of any BS views he has.
- leereeves 1y agoWikipedia says DEI seeks to "promote the fair treatment and full participation of all people". That sounds great. If only it actually worked that way instead of being code for favoritism for a few demographic groups, ignoring many other people who are excluded, and actively discriminating against straight white men. Scott Adams is right to challenge it. Edit: Disney exec admits on hidden camera "Certainly, there have been times where, 'there's no way we're hiring a white male for this'" https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/watch-disney-exec-admits-company-openly-discriminates-against-white-males-in-spoken-agreement/ar-BB1oHhaa https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/watch-disney-exec-...
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- chaosbutters314 1y agoyou forgot HIV/AIDS. we have the tools to basically snuff it out in 60-80 years if every male was on prep
- mattmaroon 1y agoI think there’s a good chance we snuff it out in 80 years even if they aren’t. Actual cures seem to be on the horizon.
- david-gpu 1y agoLook at how hard it has been to eradicate diseases that only require a couple of doses of a vaccine. How feasible do you think it would be to provide daily prep to every male in the world? Even in developed countries with free vaccinations we are suffering from measles outbreaks in 2025.
- fragmede 1y agoAre those really developed countries? A decent free public school education is a requirement for a nation to be considered developed.
- david-gpu 1y ago>> Even in developed countries with free vaccinations we are suffering from measles outbreaks in 2025. > Are those really developed countries? A decent free public school education is a requirement for a nation to be considered developed. Here's some data: In 2025 1, 2,755 measles cases (2,429 confirmed, 326 probable) and 0 rubella cases have been reported in Canada. [0] Education in Canada is for the most part provided publicly, funded and overseen by federal, provincial, and local governments. [1] Medicare is a term that refers to Canada's publicly funded health care system. Instead of having a single national plan, we have 13 provincial and territorial health care insurance plans. Under this system, all Canadian residents have reasonable access to medically necessary hospital and physician services without paying out-of-pocket. [2] Sources: [0] https://health-infobase.canada.ca/measles-rubella/ https://health-infobase.canada.ca/measles-rubella/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Canada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Canada [2] https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/canada-health-care-system.html https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/canada-healt... You are welcome.
- hn_throwaway_99 1y agoMost of the conditions you've mentioned there have exogenous causes (i.e. diseases or environmental toxins), and I question your inclusion of many of the ones that don't (who thinks we have "conquered" breast cancer??). But we have made very little progress in staving off degenerative-type diseases. Even the primary degenerative disease you mention, knee failure, we cure largely with a wholesale replacement. That obviously isn't applicable to organs we can't just swap out.
- giantg2 1y agoI agree. Rates of cancer and diabetes are up. We might have better treatments than in the past, but I though I even saw graphs showing that overall cancer fatalities rates are flat - a lower percentage of people die from it, but the increase in cases mostly offsets that (depends on the specific type).
- BurningFrog 1y agoOne angle is that as we find cures for other diseases, cancer rates go up because we live long enough to get cancer. The sum of all causes of death will very likely continue to be 100%...
- owenpalmer 1y agoSwapping out organs may be an option in the future. I'm getting a bioengineering degree so I can't work in organ engineering research. We're definitely not there yet, but there's a lot of interesting research happening in this area.
- thinkingtoilet 1y agoWe have by no means conquered prostate cancer. It is still extremely deadly.
- windowshopping 1y agoI know, I read that list and I was like "what?" Since when is even half of that stuff "conquered"?
- ryandrake 1y agoI agree. To me, using the very strong word "conquered" implies that a condition or disease is eradicated, like smallpox. Or, at the very least that we have a reliable way to prevent it.
- hwillis 1y agoThe average age of diagnosis is 67 and 95% of those men live as long as you would expect them to normally. It is certainly not cured, and treatment can be very disruptive and unpleasant, but it's definitely not "extremely deadly" with modern medical care.
- samastur 1y agoNot being extremely deadly is low bar since most of your life (with some luck) will be spent being old. I'd rather see my years being more than bearable.
- hwillis 1y agoYou certainly will not live most of your life over the age of 67.
- fridder 1y agoPerhaps not but when it is aggressive, it is very deadly. They told my dad they were thinking he could have 10 years, he got three. Seems like when it stops responding to hormone suppression things can deteriorate quickly.
- CGMthrowaway 1y agoWorth adding to the list are osteoporosis, secondary infection, hearing loss, macular degeneration (need more advancement here), hypothyroidism, chronic kidney, acute consequences of heart disease/ stroke prevention. Not all of the solutions can be called "cures" but a solution nonetheless is better than nothing and calling it "old age, shit out of luck."
- bentt 1y agoWe are bad at most things that are complex and require behavior change. Maybe our best victory in recent years has been the vilification of tobacco. It didn't get any less physically pleasurable to smoke, but the combination of political, social, economic, and medical pressure has turned the tide. It takes a lot.
- vharuck 1y agoYup. A lot of people blame environmental hazards for perceived clusters of cancer patients in neighborhoods. But behaviors are much bigger contributors to cancer risk these days. The best ways by far to avoid cancer these days are (1) don't smoke, (2) maintain a healthy BMI, (3) don't drink, and (4) eat plenty of vegetables. If you want to further reduce your risk of dying of cancer, (5) get the recommended screenings, and (6) get regular physical checkups and talk to your doctor about any new health problems. Reducing one's cancer risk is well within the power of any person. But "People should just have more willpower" is an ineffectual public policy.
- steveBK123 1y agoAnd none of these changes are permanent! Look at the cultural attitudes towards smoking pot. Often the same cities/governments/people what were fining cigarette smoking out of existence suddenly have a hands-off attitude towards pot. In NYC its illegal to smoke or drink in parks, but you can walk through a park reeking of pot and see cops writing tickets to the 2 kids who hid their beer too poorly.
- jf22 1y agoNot to nitpick but smelling like pot is not a crime.
- steveBK123 1y agoSmoking in public parks is
- DSMan195276 1y ago
- Larrikin 1y agoWhatever happened to those blood transplants people were getting from younger people? Logically it made sense, but I'm guessing after further study it didn't pan out? Or was it just a trend that didn't get any follow up?
- 1970-01-01 1y agoThere's weak science behind it. Basically it works, but you need to be a crazy person to think that it is a novel way to cheat death. Death remains undefeated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_blood_transfusion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_blood_transfusion
- GoatInGrey 1y agoTreating aging is not the same as treating death. The reason the two are colloquially linked is because aging has been by far the dominant driver of death for all of human history. To your point, aging has never failed to kill a human. There are a couple reasons to believe that aging is malleable. One is that we know how to de-age human cells using the same factors that fertilized oocytes use to de-age the underlying egg cell (typically many decades in age). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_pluripotent_stem_cell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_pluripotent_stem_cell The second is that nature has examples of biological immortality. Planaria are a fascinating one as they have among the trashiest, most mutated genome on the planet. They're even polypoid, where they have multiple sets of chromosomes, but they're simultaneously the best regenerators on the planet. Despite having a discrete nervous system and centralized brain, you can slice a planaria into hundreds of pieces, and each of those will regenerate into a full, functional adult. They don't age, they don't get cancer. The issue is that we have no idea how this happens. So there is still a lot for us to learn about the fundamentals of aging and regeneration overall.
- 1970-01-01 1y agoYou 2nd point sounds like a quest for literal reincarnation. It is great sci-fi material; When the organism is no longer a single unit, at no point does death occur. The organisms survive continuously, yet they lose no external feature. Is it cheating death? Well, what happens when the original mind meets its millionth copy?
- jmward01 1y agoI like this article, but it, like a lot of things in medicine, seems to focus on the wrong question. It isn't about disease x, it is about quantity and quality of life. I thought the part about Geographic atrophy drugs really emphasized this well. The drugs do -something- but have no impact on quality of life. I really want drug trials to focus on these two things and not proxies like 'lesion growth' which doesn't appear to have a meaningful impact on quality of life. If quality and quantity of life are improving then we can say that we are improving medicine otherwise we are just increasing medicine or worse, medicine is hurting as quality of life drops due to medical procedures that provide no real benefit but have real cost.
- bluGill 1y agoQuality of life is what everyone cares about, but is is expensive to study. We want this things like lesion growth becuase they are much easier/faster, and thus cheaper to study. There is only so many people who can do this research, and the more work they have to do in one study the less work they can do in others. You can study lesion growth with just 100 people that you follow for a year or two - this is possible for just one person (though for double blind reasons you still want a small team). To study quality of life there are so many other variables that you need tens of thousands of subjects that you follow for a decade just so you can be sure that you can statistically isolate the non-factors. Thus last I checked statins were only proven to prevent heart attacks in males under the age of 65 who have already had a heart attack. That is a large enough group to show results, and their change of heart attacks is known to be higher than normal so you don't have to study as well. Does this really mean other people should take statins, and if so who - hard to know. Our best evidence after years of study is that high cholesterol increases your odds of a heart attack, but a few people live to their 80s with high cholestrol without ever having a heart attack and nobody really knows why. (I haven't looked at the above in about 10 years so I might not know about some more recent science) We would like better study about statins and quality of life, but those are really expensive, and that is depsite statins being cheap and a lot of people willing to take part in a study.
- jmward01 1y ago
- Theodores 1y agoThe non-communicable chronic diseases are what my parents new, when they were still alive. Recently I had to get my late father's paperwork in order and this meant going through lots of medical stuff. There was also paperwork regarding my mum, it was IPF that got her. I also had to take a sack full of pills down to the chemist to get disposed of. This is in the UK where we have the NHS. The NHS would prefer to have people in good health whereas I suspect that the private healthcare system of the USA prefers to have people in bad health and medically dependent. It is just a different business model. What surprised me about the NHS paperwork was how much of it was focused on lifestyle choices, so that means living a physically active life and eating certain foods. My dad did the doctor visits and the pills but he did not do the lifestyle recommendations. He would behave like a tired toddler if you put fruit and vegetables on his plate. He was also heavily car dependent, as if any other mode of transport was not 'manly' enough for him. We had concerns for other road users with his driving but we could not get him to take the train, never mind walk as far as the nearest shop, five minutes away. Alcohol was another cause for concern. Although never drunk, he would drink every day. He would have it with his greasy food, thinking he was eating like a king. I know diet and nutrition is controversial, however, the NHS were wanting him to eat five portions of fruit and vegetables a day, and there were forms so that he could fill in how many grains, nuts, seeds, potatoes, vegetables and pieces of fruit he was eating. He wasn't eating any of those things, he was on the saturated fats, which invariably come from animal products. There were no checkboxes on the form for meat, cheese or processed foods, which is no surprise since there is no fibre in any of this stuff. There aren't any antioxidants either. The NHS prefers lifestyle interventions rather than pills. This varies by doctor, but, this is the general idea. Age related diseases are not due to age, in this day and age. They are down to poor lifestyle choices, cancer and all. Forget genetics too, sure, some people win the lottery, and others lose the cancer lottery. But the more you know then the more you realise that no amount of pills, procedures and testing will spare anyone from blocked arteries due to saturated fats with side portions of bad cholesterol. It is the same with alcohol. If we treated pensioners as if they were under age, to ban them from obtaining alcohol, then there would be a lot of miserable pensioners but they would be living a lot longer. Same with processed food and animal products, if we banned pensioners from such things then they would be miserable but live out to be a hundred years old. Face to face with my dad's NHS paperwork made me realise that I knew what I was reading all along. For decades we have known what gives you the non-communicable chronic diseases. We have also known that it is fibre and phytonutrients from whole foods that enable your body to protect itself against things such as inflammation. Looking for cures is grift. There is no cure or treatment for those that spend hours a day consuming toxins whilst they pretend they are living like a king just because they are eating heavily marketed animal products that are sold as 'good for protein'. With health and longevity, you can't have your cake full of transfats and eat it.
- Elaris 1y agoReading this article reminded me of my grandparents. In their time, people feared tuberculosis or stroke. Now, when I visit nursing homes, I hear more conversations about memory loss, knee pain, and insomnia. Even my mother now often has trouble sleeping, which has become a daily annoyance in her life. We have indeed made great progress. Many diseases that would have killed people in the past are now controllable and even less common. But at the same time, it seems that we have replaced a new batch of problems: Alzheimer's, loneliness, polypharmacy, insomnia. We live longer, but are we really living better?
- bombcar 1y agoLoneliness seems to stand out as one that we could "treat" if we really wanted to, as a society. The problem is it's not something you can pay someone to solve.
- BobBagwill 1y agoI have this age-related eye disease where all the text on a web page appears to be in a tiny, spindly font, and it appears to fade in as it scrolls. I would blame my eyeglasses, but I'm not wearing any. :-)
- mixmastamyk 1y agoScroll fade is likely due to a low quality screen, and could be replaced with a newer one.
- BobBagwill 1y agoNah, JK, it's a stupid CSS trick.
- projektfu 1y agoI'm experiencing that as well. I think the best solution is to get off the computer.
- catigula 1y agoUnfortunately there's no current or proposed medical treatment for the inevitability of death and degradation on that path, so the only real treatment is philosophical. At least in Western society, if any of you have experienced this struggle with an older relative burning through resources to desperately cling to life you know that we seem to lack some fundamental ability to approach or handle this topic philosophically. In no time I'll in the same boat. Secular society doesn't really have a great answer here.
- absurdo 1y agoI don’t expect life and death to care about the philosophy a human ascribes and it’s not a treatment to anything. It’s beyond human beings.
- catigula 1y agoNo, the philosophy is for the human, not the concept.
- quesera 1y agoMy secular answer is to live in a jurisdiction which allows assisted suicide, and to have a clear plan registered with my doctors, lawyers, and family. My fear is that I will lose the decision-making agency quickly and unexpectedly and have my clear wishes disregarded for some stupid technical reason which would require someone to take professional or legal risk to fulfill them. I've built a room in my house which is designed to be easily disconnected from the building HVAC such that I can safely discharge, and then automatically vent to outdoors, bottles of compressed gaseous nitrogen or helium. For safety, the prep for discharge requires a few minutes of work, with hands and brain that are at least marginally nimble. I worry very much about the risk of waiting too long, or having a debilitating issue crop up unexpectedly (I am presently of sound mind and body, and not old).
- catigula 1y agoI'm sorry but this answer is very abnormal for most people so it's not a great application of philosophy.
- Herodotus38 1y agoInteresting, I wouldn't classify IPF (idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis) as a disease of aging in the same way as the other diseases (MASH, Alzheimer's, etc..) like the author did here. Although I do appreciate the intent to show how limited we are. It's kind of like how cancer is clearly a disease of aging but it wasn't included in here because people think of it differently. I treat a lot of old people, and IPF is at least a couple orders of magnitude rarer than the other conditions listed. Age does play a role because it shows up when people are older, but there is something else at play in it (autoimmune, genetics) that makes people hit the unlucky lottery. I bring this up so that people reading this don't conflate normal aging related changes to the lungs with IPF. IPF is a horrible disease that kills the person in a few years (2-5 after diagnosis).
- lenerdenator 1y agoTreating? We're great at that. Curing? Horrible. Which is a real problem seeing as how people want to spend as much money as possible for diminishing returns on lifespan.
- narrator 1y agoWe'd be much closer to a cure if there wasn't that research fraud about the causes of Alzheimers that led science down a dead end for years[1]. [1]https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/false-alzheimers-study-could-set-research-back-16-years https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/false-alzheime...
- sobadically 1y agoIt’s only bad if enough people agree it’s bad. I personally don’t care if old people die since the existing old people refuse to pass better healthcare. Like Kirk said; let them die. They don’t want to care about themselves, neither do I. Physics doesn’t care about any of us. Only we do. If we want better healthcare do the political work to make so we can put agency into better healthcare and less agency into Wall Street’s war against line go down we’ve been waging for generations.
- quesera 1y agoThe old people with the power to "pass better healthcare" have excellent health care for themselves. So they do care, just not about you and me.
- knowitnone 1y agoMedically speaking, "Geographic atrophy" is very poorly named. It is not descriptive at all.
- jimt1234 1y agoMy mother is in the early stages of Alzheimer's. It's terrible. I wouldn't recommend my experience on anyone. That might sound selfish, but it's just so painful to watch her deteriorate, knowing there's nothing that can be done. I watched her take a cognitive test recently - draw a clock, put the hands at 10 after 5. She worked on it for a minute or two, struggled, got it all wrong, then forgot what she was doing. It was one of the most painful things I've ever witnessed. Sorry for the non-constructive comment. I guess the only constructive-ish thing is to recommend that if you've got elderly loved ones exhibiting short-term memory issues, get them tested ASAP. Then, get the "legal stuff" started right away (powers of attorney).
- quesera 1y agoThat's awful. I've recently gone through a similar process with an aging relative. Two takeaways for me: The things the medical industry will do to keep people "alive" are extraordinary, and expensive, and (in some cases) abuses of the concept of "living". Moving to a sane jurisdiction where assisted suicide is legal is the only possible (but not guaranteed) strategy to approach this problem in a dignified way. (OK, some people will argue that suicide is never dignified or moral or whatever, but I am not interested in their opinions about what I can do with my body in this situation, or really any others)
- JLJ0 1y agoWow I have BSD, the early stages of MD and Bronchiectasis all by my early thirties, interesting to see similar diseases at the top of the article. I guess I will just pray to the Omnissiah.
- tsoukase 1y agoAlzheimer's, Parkinson's, secondary progressive multiple sclerosis, ALS and all other neuro-degenerative diseases are age related and incurable. We are far from aproaching their causes, much more their cure. I believe they share the same underlying mechanisms (loss of neurons), though in different regions, and their cure is equivalent to immortality.