Anti-aging Medicine

Fighting the disability of old age

Anti-aging medicine seeks to treat diseases not by picking them off one at a time but by treating the underlying cause of nearly all disease in the Western world; aging. It is a controversial idea, as discussed in the Ageing section (see index on the left). but one receiving increasing support, and funding, as our population itself ages.

My interest is in the damage accumulates in the body with age (See ‘Chemical Errors’ below), why the body does not repair that, and how we can boost our own ability to rejuvenate ourselves (or at least, slow down the growing tide of failing tissues and organs that makes being old less enjoyable than it might be.)

Why do this? In part, because the disability of old age is the number one economic problem facing Western societies today (the pension crisis is only part of this). In part (and let’s be honest here) because there is a huge amount of money to be made out of healthcare treatments that actually treat the problems of old age, rather than just patch up the symptoms. And in part because I, personally, want to be alive when the first spacecraft to Proxima b sends its results back home.

But the main reason is that I have seen relatives decline from being fascinating, active friends to incapable dependents who would rather not be alive, and I do not want that to happen to anyone else. This is not just “Nowadays I need the little blue pill…” This is the pointless destruction of a human being. UK commedians Mitchell and Webb caught the tragedy of this brilliantly in this very funny but devastating sketch. Ageing does not have to be a decline into degrading, painful helplessness. We can ‘age gracefully’ if we have the physical and mental ability to do so. This is the promise that anti-aging medicine holds out. It will also increase our lifespans, which is a fantastic thing to do providing those lifespans are healthy and useful and happy.