As illustrated in today's research commentary, all too many researchers continue to view aging as something distinct from age-related disease, and this inevitably leads to a poor approach to research and development. In this case, a rejection of the idea that rejuvenation is possible in principle at the present time. If one believes that aging and age-related disease are distinct, then one can also think that it is possible to age successfully, or age healthily. That we should split out the concepts of aging and disease, and only treat disease. This is all abject nonsense. There is no such thing as healthy aging or successful aging. There are processes of aging that can clearly be reversed, either actually or in principle. Too many people in positions of influence are producing irrational strategies for medical research under the belief that healthy aging is a viable goal.

Aging is by definition the accumulation of damage and dysfunction that raises mortality risk over time; it is a process of harm and loss. A "healthy" 80-year-old is in no way healthy by any objective measure. Can he sprint the way he used to? No. Is his hearing and eyesight the match of a youngster? No. Are his arteries damaged and distorted? Yes. Does he have a mortality risk that would raise eyebrows in a 20-year-old? Also yes. This is not health. This is a considerable progression towards the polar opposite of health.

To call any particular outcome of the damage and dysfunction at the roots of aging a disease is to draw an arbitrary line in the sand and say that some dysfunction is healthy, and won't be treated, while a little more dysfunction than that is unhealthy, and a disease that should be treated. Sadly this is exactly how medical science has progressed for all too long, even as the scientific understanding of aging needed for a better approach was assembled over the past century or more. The outcomes on either side of that arbitrary line in the sand (yes, you have clinical arthritis and will be treated, versus no, you have signs of progression towards clinical arthritis and come back later) all result from the same processes of damage taking place under the hood. This damage grows with time and leads inexorably to organ failure and death. Thus we should develop rejuvenation therapies to repair that damage, ideally long before it rises to the level of causing pathology. History teaches us that any other path is doomed to failure at worst and marginal, accidental gains at best.

Are We Ill Because We Age?