Is Aging a Disease?

Unlike life, this flawed argument seems to have no end

Robert Roy Britt
Aha! Science
Published in
4 min readOct 20, 2022

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Whenever philosophers, scientists, medical professionals or futurists talk about the effects of aging, it tends to devolve into a two-sided debate over whether…

  • aging is a natural course of life that can (but does not always necessarily) contribute to illness and disability, or…
  • aging is a disease and a primary cause of other illness and disability.

Science writer Sarah Sloat dug into this age-old debate, interviewing scientists on both sides, for an article in Technology Review. Most revealing was this nugget: The World Health Organization (WHO) recently considered replacing the word for the diagnosis of “senility,” with the term “old age.” Essentially: You’re not senile. You’re just old.

Some experts argue this would only further ageism, Sloat reported:

If age alone were presumed to be a disease, that could lead to inadequate care from physicians… Rather than pinpoint exactly what’s troubling a patient, a problem could simply be dismissed as a consequence of advanced years.

From the other side, this argument, promoted by David Sinclair, a professor at Harvard Medical School:

The best way to combat ageism is to tackle aging: facing the problem head-on by devising treatments to slow its progress. ““The current view that aging is acceptable is ageism in itself.”

On becoming invisible

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Robert Roy Britt
Aha! Science

Editor of Wise & Well on Medium + the Writer's Guide at writersguide.substack.com. Author of Make Sleep Your Superpower: amazon.com/dp/B0BJBYFQCB