Causes.com
| 1.25.23
Should the FDA Recognize Aging as a Disease?
Should aging be considered a disease? Let the FDA know what you think.
What’s the story?
- The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recognizes aging as a natural process of life, which some scientists are trying to change. There is a growing consensus among the scientific community that aging should be considered a disease.
- Exports are urging the FDA to classify aging as a disease to make it easier to approve drugs and therapies that seek to slow down the effects of aging on the human body.
- If the FDA agrees to recognize aging as a disease, researchers and drug companies could develop and gain approval for treatments that not only delay the aging process, but could potentially stunt the progression of accompanying conditions.
What is the scientific community saying?
- The World Health Organization (WHO), a supporter of this measure, described aging as “...the impact of the accumulation of a wide variety of molecular and cellular damage over time,” which scientists say is a significant risk factor for other fatal conditions.
- Supporting researchers say that while aging in and of itself is not an unnatural condition, the deterioration of the human body and its functions are symptoms of aging, just like that of a disease. Classifying aging as a disease would allow the medical community to directly fight the symptoms of aging to prevent another medical condition from developing.
- David Sinclair, a geneticist at Harvard Medical School, argues that if we label aging differently, it will give the medical community a better chance at treating the health of the elderly and not just the diseases that accompany old age. He said:
"Many of the most serious diseases today are a function of aging. Thus, identifying the molecular mechanisms and treatments of aging should be an urgent priority. Unless we address aging at its root cause, we're not going to continue our linear, upward progress toward longer and longer life spans."
Importance of disease classifications
- What we consider a disease is strongly based on historical context and societal beliefs. Even if something may not look like a disease in today’s modern world, the classification could significantly affect public health.
- For example, fever was once seen as a disease until it was realized to be a symptom. Homosexuality was considered a disease up until 1974 — only five decades ago. Alzheimer’s was seen as a consequence of old age until it was recognized as a disease in the early 20th century. Diseases need to be revised and redefined based on our changing culture and the needs of the public.
- A 2015 study published in Frontiers in Genetics, which discussed the possibility of aging becoming a disease, said:
“In many cases, diseases also seem to lack a nominal sense, as there are no necessary and sufficient conditions that they must have to qualify as diseases, rather than as separate pathological conditions such as injuries, disabilities, and deformities.”
What do opponents think?
- Opponents fear that considering aging a treatable condition would fuel an anti-aging beauty standard that would harm society, especially young women, and benefit the cosmetics industry.
- Others point to the possibility of the stigma around old age growing stronger. Nir Barzilai, director of the Institute for Aging Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, said:
"Ageism is the biggest ism we have today in the world. The aging community is attacked...To go to those people with so many problems and now tell them, 'You're sick, you have a disease'? This is a no-win situation for the people we are trying to help."
What to expect from the FDA
- As pressure from the science community and drug industry increases, the FDA will likely address this issue in the near future. However, the agency would need to create guidelines on how to measure aging, which could take time.
- The first step would be creating biomarkers for aging, which the FDA recently said it would be willing to do to identify early-stage Alzheimer’s.
- The FDA is also facing pressure from Congress to establish and clarify the regulatory pathways for emerging regenerative therapies, which today only target specific diseases or medical conditions, but could address the entire aging process in the future. This step would make these therapies accessible as preventative care solutions on a broad scale, meaning the FDA will need to regulate the market.
What do you think? Should the FDA classify aging as a disease?
-Jamie Epstein
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Why is this needed? We have Geriatrics and Gerontology which study and treat the elderly.
Very interesting. I never thought of aging as something like a disease. The idea of treating aging as a factor of disease should help provide for a better quality of life hopefully.
I'm pretty sure if aging is considered a disease then the cure is death.
That said, I have no issue with classifying some of the effects of aging as diseases, if it means better treatments can be discovered. For example, my grandfather, from his mid-80s suffered from macular degeneration (he died at 96). A few generations earlier, nearly no one suffered from it because life expectancy wasn't generally long enough for people to actually develop this particular eye problem. One might argue that evolution wasn't really prepared for people to need their eyes for 90 years. My point is, the longer we live, the more our bodies break down. Fighting the breakdown is one thing; the act of simply getting older isn't a disease (it could be a condition or syndrome, I suppose...).
The concept looks beneficial, but as an 80-year-old guy, it'll likely raise the discrimination even more. There is already ageism out there.
If aging is identified as a disease then I am not sure I want to tell people that because I'm 80 that I have a disease. I don't mind telling people if I do have a disease without that label. Medical folks will know if it is from age that one gets a disease without the label.
So I'm against making aging a disease.
It woiuld make more sense to work on the causes of the human body breaking down instead of giving it a label. Like any piece of machinery, if not cared for, it will break down much faster. When it comes to the human body, fuel that keeps it going, environment that aids in utilizing that fuel, proper medical attention (physical AND mental) must also be under consideration, and a proper education in what we actually require to keep us going. Sadly, Capitalistic greed is in control once again. This is a rut that needs to be repaired if humanity is to survive in the future. Just don't call it a "DISEASE" and simply give it the ability and chance to allow nature to take it's course in it's own time.
Should the FDA recategorize aging as a disease to be treated?
Aging is a complex process influenced by multiple factors, and it is unclear whether aging qualifies as a disease. Some may argue that aging is a natural process that can be slowed or even reversed with the right lifestyle choices.
In contrast, others may consider aging a disease because it is a condition that can cause significant health problems. Ultimately, the categorization of aging should be determined based on how that definition works best for the aging population, which is everyone.
As an older person, I see that aging differs vastly from one person to the next. Some effects of aging relate to your life experiences and how well you have cared for your body. For example, I had an auto accident in my 20s and am now paying for the accident with arthritis in many of my joints.
Other effects of aging related to your genes are out of a person's control. These include the natural decline in your physical, memory, and mental abilities accompanying aging. Delineating normal aging from what is controllable is often extremely difficult.
If the scientific establishment recategorized aging as a disease, would the medical establishment do more to help those of us while aging? Unfortunately, it seems most medicine already want to disregard us and don't have the time to deal with our current disease processes.
Aging is not a disease. Aging is a condition that can lead to other diseases and disablilites.
Calling aging a 'disease' leads to the same conclusions of many distopian Sci-Fi movies where the 'cure' to this disease is euthanasia when anyone reaches a certain age.
Personally, at my age, I would not like that cure - at least not at his point in time.
Medical issues associated with aging certainly need to be studied and methods of treatment need to be developed. I am sure that is the intent of classifying aging as a disease - but it leaves a very bad connotation.
As we have seen over and over again, people act on the short hand buzz phrase that intends to describe something and the simpletons act on the buzz phrase wording instead of the original intent. Take the phrase 'defund the police', which was interpreted literally instead of the intended meaning , to allocate some of the police funding to other community services for drug addiction, mental health services, domestic disputes and so on - all to keep police from always having to spend time on these things and freeing them to concentrate on actual criminal threats.
Same issue with "Aging is disease'
We're all going to die one day. That is inevitable. So why talk about aging in this way? It makes no sense. And it's counterproductive.
This already exists. There are two specialties, geriatrics and gerontology. One is treating of the elderly, and the other is study of aging.
I thkn this is total nonsense. Aging is a part of life and always has been. To classify it as a disease only adds stigmatizes the elderly even more than they alread are. What's next-classifying birth as a disease or infancy, etc. The FDA would be better off using their resources on real diseases.
I'm not sure it's a disease, but I do support public health efforts to better understand aging and commit resources to its study and the support of those going through it.
If the only way they can better provide resources to the aging is to call it a disease, that seems backwards, but I can live with it.
We have a lot of aging people in this country and we do need a plan for better supporting the aging.
I follow Rochelle T. Parks on Instagram. She is a Health Motivator and Educator. She is in her fifties. She is not on any type of medication. She educates people on what to eat.
I subscribed to Kukuwa Fitness. She is in her sixties. She is full of so much energy.
Both these young ladies have redefine what aging is to me.
It is what you eat and how you move that affects you.
Recently, Causes discussed Forever Chemicals. I pretty sure that is having an major affect on our aging process.
It will be difficult if not impossible for the FDA to deviate from World Health Organization (WHO) ICD-x classification system which is a global standard for diagnosis codes only,
What most likely will happen is ICD-10-CM (Clinical Modification) will be updated in ICD-11-CM to support US health information needs for research, treatment procedures & billing.
WHO released ICD-11 in February 2022 which is used by 38 countries and available in Arabic, Chinese, English, French & Spanish with 20 more languages planned including Russian.
The debate over "aging" as a diagnosis code under ICD-11 was over the proposal to replace "senility" with "old age" which researchers working on anti-aging therapies wanted but many felt would only increase age discrimination, so ICD-11 was released without including old age as a disease as it's considered a biological process that contributes to the risk of developing certain diseases.
Instead there is still an extension code for “aging-related” diseases, but the definition was updated from those “caused by pathological process,” to be “caused by biological process.”
FDA is still free to change ICD-11-CM which lists approved country specific treatments for globally defined disease conditions in order to support development of new treatment therapies like using Metformin to slow aging, prescribing and billing.
https://www.who.int/news/item/11-02-2022-icd-11-2022-release
https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/10/19/1061070/is-old-age-a-disease/amp/
"The FDA is also facing pressure from Congress to establish and clarify the regulatory pathways for emerging regenerative therapies, which today only target specific diseases or medical conditions, but could address the entire aging process in the future. This step would make these therapies accessible as preventative care solutions on a broad scale, meaning the FDA will need to regulate the market.
"What do you think? Should the FDA classify aging as a disease?"
Yes. We have many unjustified limiting cultural assumptions. At the same time, many of us derive much hope from science. As we get older many of us have serious and chronic ailments currently considered part of the aging process. Take, for example, arthritis. If bioscience can somehow defeat/cure/effectively reverse arthritis then one major ailment considered coincidental with growing older will be eliminated.
Already cataracts, formerly a serious eye disease many associated with aging, are now quite often treated with a procedure with excellent results.
Maybe someday a set of genes can be fined tuned to prevent many ailments from occurring, but, meanwhile, we benefit from the incremental advances that treat individual ailments.
“Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.” Ecclesiates 1:2
Such arrogance as to consider aging a disease. Only God is God, we are not. Aging is a natural process that we spend our entire lives preparing for. There are some things that should not be monetized, but to convince, or even suggest, such to capitalists and their scientific engineers is futile as $$$ is what they know. There may actually be a time, and circumstances, where aging and death would be welcomed. Societies that worship youth and belittle wisdom and the knowledge that comes with experience have difficulty understanding that.
Aging is a normal process. Life has stages which everyone must go through. Diseases are abnormal processes. Aging is normal and natural. That said there are diseases related to aging. Those we can do something about especially as we learn more.
Is this a joke or is someone trying to get a federal grant. Aging is not a disease, it's growing old. We are not as fortunate to live as old as folks in Genius. Not sure I would want to. If this is considered a disease, does it apply to all living things, animals, trees, grasses, flowers, fish, amphibians,etc. let's get real and focus on real diseases like Huntingtons, Cancer, Diabetes, etc.
Aging is Not a diease it is just normal, routine part of Life. Get used to it.