The Importance of Treating Aging Like a Disease

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The single biggest risk factor for that whole panoply of geriatric diseases is the aging process itself. If you can treat, if you can find a way of slowing that process or ameliorating that process, you can actually affect all kinds of things. I hate the idea of pathologizing old age or medicalizing old age, but if it's going to release the log jam of people wanting to translate what they've learned about gerontology into something that's going to prevent or stop those other diseases then it's worth looking at how we call it.

Why should we stop ageing? Today we talk about everything to with ageing, why it occurs, why there’s renewed interest in it and what we can do about it. Sue beautifully lays out the history of longevity research, the origins of this fascinating scientific discipline and what the latest research means for you.

We’re taking a short break on the podcast this week so we’re diving into the rich archives of The Doctor’s Kitchen Podcast to resurface one of my favourite conversations from 2 years ago.

Sue Armstrong is a writer and broadcaster specialising in science, health and development issues and author of one of my favourite books on longevity, “Borrowed Time – The science of how and why we age”.

Today we discuss how Sue's career got started as well as her experience reporting on Nelson Mandela’s release from prison as well as her time spent researching HIV.

We talk about:

The origins of ageing research

The different theories of why we age

Cellular senescence

The ageing immune system

Calorie restriction and its pros and cons

And lots more

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