<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style></head><body><div style="font-family:verdana,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:8pt">Nothing new here for us, but glad to see this in the popular media. Of course I wish he would have put more thought into the very last comment.<br><br><span><a target="_blank" href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/dailybeast/20100323/ts_dailybeast/7269_scarynewgoppoll">http://news.yahoo.com/s/dailybeast/20100323/ts_dailybeast/7269_scarynewgoppoll</a></span><br><br><div class="byline">
<cite class="vcard">
By Kate Kelland <span class="fn org">Kate Kelland</span>
</cite>
–
<abbr title="2010-05-20T02:30:12-0700" class="timedate">Thu May 20,
5:30 am ET</abbr></div><!-- end .byline -->
<div class="yn-story-content">
<p>LONDON (Reuters) –
Is aging a disease?</p>
<p>
It's clear that the simple fact of growing older -- chronological aging
-- is relentless and unstoppable. But experts studying the science of
aging say it's time for a fresh look at the biological process -- one
which recognizes it as a condition that can be manipulated, treated and
delayed.</p>
<p>
Taking this new approach would turn the <a id="KonaLink0" target="undefined" class="kLink" style="" href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100520/hl_nm/us_ageing_disease#"><font style="color: rgb(54, 99, 136) ! important; font-family: arial,helvetica,clean,sans-serif; font-weight: 400; font-size: 13px; position: static;" color="#366388"><span class="kLink" style="color: rgb(54, 99, 136) ! important; font-family: arial,helvetica,clean,sans-serif; font-weight: 400; font-size: 13px; position: static;">search </span><span class="kLink" style="color: rgb(54, 99, 136) ! important; font-family: arial,helvetica,clean,sans-serif; font-weight: 400; font-size: 13px; position: static;">for </span><span class="kLink" style="color: rgb(54, 99, 136) ! important; font-family: arial,helvetica,clean,sans-serif; font-weight: 400; font-size: 13px; position: static;">drugs</span></font></a>
to fight age-related diseases on its head, they say, and could speed
the path to market of drugs that treat multiple illnesses like <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1274383526_0">diabetes</span>, <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1274383526_1">heart disease</span> and
Alzheimer's at the same time.</p>
<p>
"If aging is seen as a disease, it changes how we respond to it. For
example, it becomes the duty of doctors to treat it," said David Gems, a
biogerontologist who spoke at a conference on aging in London last week
called "Turning Back the Clock."</p>
<p>
At the moment, drug companies and scientists keen to develop their
research on aging into tangible results are hampered by regulators in
the United States and <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1274383526_2">Europe</span>
who will license medicines only for specific diseases, not for
something as general as aging.</p>
<p>
"Because aging is not viewed as a disease, the whole process of bringing
drugs to market can't be applied to drugs that treat aging. This
creates a disincentive to pharmaceutical companies to develop drugs to
treat it," said Gems.</p>
<p>
The ability of humans to live longer and longer lives is being
demonstrated in abundance across the world.</p>
<p>
Average life expectancies extended by as much as 30 years in developed
countries during the 20th century and experts expect the same or more to
happen again in this century.</p>
<p>
A study published last year by Danish researchers estimated that more
than half of all babies born in wealthy nations since the year 2000 will
live to see their 100th birthdays.</p>
<p>
"THERE'S ONE THING WE'RE ALL MISSING"</p>
<p>
But with greater age comes a heavier burden of age-related disease.</p>
<p>
Cases of dementia and <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1274383526_3">Alzheimer's</span>,
incurable brain-wasting conditions, are expected to almost double every
20 years to around 66 million in 2030 and over 115 million in 2050.</p>
<p>
Diabetes, <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1274383526_4">heart disease</span>
and cancer, and the cost of coping with them in aging populations, are
also set to rise dramatically in coming decades in rich and poor
countries alike.</p>
<p>
Nir Barzilai of the <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1274383526_5">Albert
Einstein College of Medicine</span> at <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1274383526_6">Yeshiva University</span> in New York, says one way
of trying to face down this enormous <a id="KonaLink2" target="undefined" class="kLink" style="" href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100520/hl_nm/us_ageing_disease#"><font style="color: rgb(54, 99, 136) ! important; font-family: arial,helvetica,clean,sans-serif; font-weight: 400; font-size: 13px; position: static;" color="#366388"><span class="kLink" style="color: rgb(54, 99, 136) ! important; font-family: arial,helvetica,clean,sans-serif; font-weight: 400; font-size: 13px; position: static;">burden </span><span class="kLink" style="color: rgb(54, 99, 136) ! important; font-family: arial,helvetica,clean,sans-serif; font-weight: 400; font-size: 13px; position: static;">of </span><span class="kLink" style="color: rgb(54, 99, 136) ! important; font-family: arial,helvetica,clean,sans-serif; font-weight: 400; font-size: 13px; position: static;">disease</span></font></a>
is to look at the biggest risk factor common to all of them -- aging.</p>
<p>
"There's one thing everybody is missing," he said. "Aging is common for
all of these diseases -- and yet we're not investigating the common
mechanism for all of them. We are just looking at the specific
diseases."</p>
<p>
To try to reverse that, Barzilai and many other scientists around the
world are studying the genes of the very old and starting to find the <a id="KonaLink3" target="undefined" class="kLink" style="" href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100520/hl_nm/us_ageing_disease#"><font style="color: rgb(54, 99, 136) ! important; font-family: arial,helvetica,clean,sans-serif; font-weight: 400; font-size: 13px; position: static;" color="#366388"><span class="kLink" style="color: rgb(54, 99, 136) ! important; font-family: arial,helvetica,clean,sans-serif; font-weight: 400; font-size: 13px; position: static;">genetic </span><span class="kLink" style="color: rgb(54, 99, 136) ! important; font-family: arial,helvetica,clean,sans-serif; font-weight: 400; font-size: 13px; position: static;">mechanisms</span></font></a>, or pathways, that help
them beat off the dementias, cancers, <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1274383526_7">heart diseases</span> and other age-related
illnesses that bring down others who die younger.</p>
<p>
By finding the genes thought to help determine longevity, scientists
think they may be able to mimic their action to not only extend <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1274383526_8">life span</span>, but,
crucially, extend health span.</p>
<p>
"It is ... looking increasingly likely that pharmacological manipulation
of these ... pathways could form the basis of new <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1274383526_9">preventative medicines</span>
for diseases aging, and aging itself," said Andrew Dillin of the <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1274383526_10">Salk Institute</span> in
California and the <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1274383526_11">Howard
Hughes Medical Institute</span>.
</p><p>
Gems says institutional and ideological barriers are standing in the way
-- and a major one is the longstanding traditional view that aging is
not a disease, but a natural, benign process that should not be
interfered with.
</p><p>
CHANGING ATTITUDES?
</p><p>
All three experts say, however, that the ground is shifting in their
direction.
</p><p>
There is now a "groundswell" of specialists in aging, says Dillin, who
are lobbying the world's biggest <a id="KonaLink4" target="undefined" class="kLink" style="" href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100520/hl_nm/us_ageing_disease#"><font style="color: rgb(54, 99, 136) ! important; font-family: arial,helvetica,clean,sans-serif; font-weight: 400; font-size: 13px; position: static;" color="#366388"><span class="kLink" style="color: rgb(54, 99, 136) ! important; font-family: arial,helvetica,clean,sans-serif; font-weight: 400; font-size: 13px; position: static;">drug </span><span class="kLink" style="color: rgb(54, 99, 136) ! important; font-family: arial,helvetica,clean,sans-serif; font-weight: 400; font-size: 13px; position: static;">regulator</span></font></a>,
the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, to consider redefining aging as a
disease in its own right.
</p><p>
Major scientific research bodies like the <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1274383526_12">U.S. National Institutes of Health</span> and the <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1274383526_13">Medical Research Council</span>
in <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1274383526_14">Britain</span> are
also under pressure to put more emphasis -- and funding -- into studying
how aging increases disease risk.
</p><p>
For biogerontologists, as scientists who study the biology of aging are
known, the struggle is to convince people that their goal in unpicking
the science behind aging is no longer life, but healthier life.
</p><p>
"The whole reason that we study the aging process is not actually to
make people live a lot longer, it's to get people to have a more healthy
lifespan," said Dillin.
</p><p>
He sees it as a matter of re-educating the public and health authorities
to see biological aging in a new light.
</p><p>
"When we are in the public arena we tell people we're working on the
aging process, the first thing they think is that we want to make a
100-year-old person live to be 250 -- and that's actually the furthest
from the truth," he said.
</p><p>
"What I want is for a 60-year-old person who is predisposed to have <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1274383526_15">Alzheimer's</span> to be able
to delay that, live to be 80, and get to know their grandchildren."</p>
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