Is aging a disease?

Is aging a disease?

Alzheimer's disease

Aging is natural.

Is this true?

Some believe aging is not natural, and they categorize aging as a disease.

Now; the World Health Organization (WHO) decided in 2022 to enforce the 2019 proposal that aging is a disease.

Therefore, currently, the accepted definition is that aging is a disease, and the "disease-property" is "aging-associated decline in intrinsic capacity."   👇🏻

Mendoza-Núñez V, Mendoza-Soto A (February 24, 2024) Is Aging a Disease? A Critical Review Within the Framework of Ageism. Cureus 16(2): e54834. doi:10.7759/cureus.54834

Note to myself: intrinsic capacity. Whatever this means.

I still haven't made up my mind if it's a disease or not.

Partly because it's so hard to understand what aging is.

The question of whether aging is a disease or not suddenly becomes a "philosophical question."

If aging is a disease, shall I then join the "don't die movement," which opens up a ton of evolutionary ethical questions about whether it is even good for mankind to live for too long?

What about kids?

Nature probably gave us this fantastic opportunity for a reason.

There may be reasons why we age.

And reasons for why we die.

The research happening within the Alzheimer's and related dementias (ADRD) field is promising and might be the leading community that could answer such a difficult question.

First and foremost, the Alzheimer's research community is fantastic.

The community can be visited at yearly conferences such as AAIC, CTAD, and AD/PD, where most of the state-of-the-art research within ADRD is presented.

Back to the question of aging:

Is aging natural?

But in order to understand natural aging, we might first have to understand what it is not.

This is where the ADRD research community comes in.

Researching Alzheimer's disease and related dementias allows for a more in-depth understanding of the aging question.

Based on the progress in biomarker research, this community might, in the future, be able to define aging a lot better than the current WHO definition. With more objective measures.

Research in ADRD enables one to comprehend, learn, and apply one's knowledge to what occurs biologically in the human body when it becomes out of balance.

The most extreme opposite of natural aging may somehow be related to ADRD.

ADRD research allows one to understand what natural aging is not.

Also, the ADRD research community is obsessed with something called Braak Staging.

Oversimplification: This is, in a way, a kind of "staging when aging has gone wrong".

Staging when aging has gone wrong — "Braak Staging"


Braak Staging is a way for scientists and doctors to determine how much Alzheimer's disease (and some other neurodegenerative diseases) has affected a person's brain.

The brain is like a big city, and Alzheimer's disease is like a slowly spreading fog that makes it harder to see and think clearly.

Here's how the Braak Staging works in a severely oversimplified fashion:

  1. Stage 1 and 2: The fog is just starting. It’s in the town area of the city where memory and planning happen. People might start forgetting little things, like where they put their keys or what they had for breakfast.
  2. Stage 3 and 4: The fog spreads to the suburbs of the city. Now, it's harder for people to do things like follow a recipe or remember appointments. They might get confused about what day it is.
  3. Stage 5 and 6: The fog covers almost the whole city. It’s really hard for people to remember their loved ones' names and recognize familiar places. They might need help with everyday tasks like getting dressed or eating.

In other words:

Braak staging helps doctors understand how far along Alzheimer's disease is, which can help them decide the best way to take care of the person affected.

So what about staging aging?

This seems hard.

It's hard enough to find biomarkers for staging Alzheimer's disease. Also, the brain is not "physically" changing as much as in Alzheimer's disease.

However, over the past four years, significant progress has been made in identifying biomarkers relevant to Alzheimer's disease and related dementias.

Inventing a useful "staging ranking" should therefore be possible for aging as well.

Staging aging might therefore become "a thing" of the future.

WHO would need someone to invent the staging of natural and unnatural aging - note to self; whatever "natural" and "unnatural" means.

Apparently, WHO believes we have a disease as we age, and it's a decline in our intrinsic capacity.

If it is the decline in our intrinsic capacity that is "unnatural," then so be it.

What we can be sure of is that staging aging with biomarkers similar to Braak's staging of Alzheimer's disease is relevant if aging is indeed a disease.

The staging of aging would allow one to take a more rigid and systematic approach toward a deeper understanding of aging.

One could say that:

To investigate the decline of intrinsic capacity that happens as we age and promote research into the field of aging, it would probably be valuable to categorize aging as a disease so that it motivates researchers and doctors to investigate aging and intervene to stay healthy as we age.

Therefore, one could also argue that what WHO did in 2022 made sense to sprout research into this field; or did it?