Classifying ageing as a disease Classifying ageing as a disease Classifying ageing as a disease Classifying ageing as a disease
Why does Fusion want to classify ageing as a disease? This policy is the product of consultation with forward-looking health professionals and organisations. It does not mean that everyone over a certain age is diseased!
A big hurdle for people in confronting this topic is the stigma that they are unfairly putting on the term "disease". In this day and age, we don't call cancer sufferers or coeliac sufferers diseased when they're lying in bed or avoiding bread. And yet, by definition, they do indeed have diseases.
Fusion's perspective is that all citizens, especially those suffering health conditions, deserve to be treated with respect and given support. We should not be victim-blaming or moral-grandstanding about a widespread phenomenon that has unfortunately been overlooked for millennia.
Health
The most important point here is that we're talking about duration of health in life, or healthspan, as opposed to total life duration. Lifespan is how long you live; healthspan is how long you are healthy, functional, capable and unburdened by the effects of ageing that gradually rob a person of their ability to live their life to the fullest, learn new things, adapt to change, and endure misfortune.
Many of the health impacts that afflict people as they age are triggered or encouraged by specific things which break down in the body, due to the collection of processes which we define as "ageing". Once they've been triggered, many of them are there to stay. No going back.
These things are the primary cause of suffering for people as they get older – things like arthritis, thin skin, brittleness, and deteriorating eyesight. These contribute to muscle wastage, loss of coordination, etc.
And yet these are not the things that kill people – leading causes of death are lung cancer, coronary heart disease, dementia, and cerebrovascular disease.
Treating these symptoms of ageing is expensive, and only minimally effective at reducing that suffering. People now live longer than ever, and they also spend a larger percentage of their life suffering from avoidable ailments as well.
Treating the ageing process itself is unlikely to make people live much longer, but it can prevent or greatly limit most of the causes of suffering while old. This is what is meant by "prevent ageing".
Treatment Regulations
Now the thing is, we have many medications that can be used to reduce the effects of ageing, and prevent that suffering. These medications exist to treat various specific conditions, but can have secondary anti-ageing effects.
However, doctors are not allowed to prescribe medication to someone just "for being old". An "actual problem" needs to be diagnosed first.
Classifying ageing as a disease is the critical regulatory step that will let doctors proactively prescribe medications to people (if they want them) to "treat" ageing, and prevent those conditions which cause age-related suffering from arising or advancing.
Population Planning
In our developed world, people are having children later than they used to and working into older ages. That also leads to a shrinking population.
Letting people be healthier, happier, and fitter into old age prepares society to better handle the pressures placed upon it in our modern world, and also help it to sustain an equilibrium.
For a long time the medical field has been focused on extending life. Now we're blessed by longer, but burdened by overall less healthy, lives.
Summary
At the end of the day it's not likely to make people live much longer. Maybe people live 10 years longer, who knows? We won't know until we try, but the same things that kill people at an advanced age are still going to be the leading causes, and they're not going to be significantly affected.
But this is how we need to support healthcare in the ageing population – to reduce suffering.
Policy Submission
What policy would you add?
If you'd like to participate in our policy development, the meetings are every 2 weeks 📆.