{"id":193629,"date":"2024-07-26T22:22:28","date_gmt":"2024-07-27T03:22:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/07\/why-cant-we-admit-age-is-a-biologically-meaningful-number"},"modified":"2024-07-26T22:22:28","modified_gmt":"2024-07-27T03:22:28","slug":"why-cant-we-admit-age-is-a-biologically-meaningful-number","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/07\/why-cant-we-admit-age-is-a-biologically-meaningful-number","title":{"rendered":"Why Can\u2019t we Admit Age is a (Biologically) Meaningful Number?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/why-cant-we-admit-age-is-a-biologically-meaningful-number2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>If there\u2019s one phrase the June 2024 U.S. presidential debate may entirely eliminate from the English vocabulary it\u2019s that age is a meaningless number. Often attributed to boxer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.brainyquote.com\/quotes\/muhammad_ali_148624\">Muhammad Ali<\/a>, who grudgingly retired at age 39, this centuries-old idea has had far-reaching consequences in global politics, as life expectancy more than <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2021\/04\/27\/magazine\/global-life-span.html\">doubled<\/a> since the start of the 20th century, and presidents\u2019 ages shifted <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usnews.com\/news\/slideshows\/the-10-oldest-presidents\">upwards<\/a>. We say \u201cage is what we make of it\u201d to ourselves and to policymakers, and think it\u2019s a harmless way to dignify the aged. But how true is it? And if it isn\u2019t true, why would we lie?<\/p>\n<p>For centuries, we have confused our narrative of what aging <em>should be <\/em>with what its ruthless biology <em>is. <\/em>Yet pretending that biological age does not matter is at best myopic, and at worst, it\u2019s a dangerous story to our governments, families, and economies. In just 11 years \u2014 between 2018 and 2029 \u2014 U.S. spending on Social Security and Medicare will more than double, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbo.gov\/system\/files?file=2019-01\/54918-Outlook.pdf\">from $1.3 trillion to $2.7 trillion<\/a> per year. As we age, our odds of getting sick and dying by basically anything go up <em>exponentially<\/em>. If smoking increases our chances of getting cancer by a factor of 15, aging does so <a href=\"https:\/\/a4li.org\/policymakersguide\/\">100<\/a>-fold. At age <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC4906299\/\">65<\/a>, less than 5% of people are diagnosed with Alzheimer\u2019s. Beyond age 85, nearly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC4906299\/\"><em>half<\/em><\/a> the population has some form of dementia. Biological aging is the biggest <a href=\"https:\/\/erj.ersjournals.com\/content\/44\/5\/1332#:~:text=Ageing%20is%20associated%20with%20a, factors%20for%20most%20chronic%20diseases.\">risk factor<\/a> for most chronic diseases; it\u2019s a neglected <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/nchs\/nvss\/vsrr\/covid_weekly\/index.htm\">factor<\/a> in global pandemics; and it even plays a role in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mayoclinic.org\/diseases-conditions\/progeria\/symptoms-causes\/syc-20356038#:~:text=Progeria%20(pro%2DJEER%2De, generally%20appear%20healthy%20at%20birth.\">rare<\/a> diseases.<\/p>\n<p>This explains why in hospitals, if there\u2019s <em>one<\/em> marker next to a patient\u2019s name, it\u2019s their age. How many birthday candles we have blown out is an archaic surrogate marker of biological aging. Yet it\u2019s the best we have. Chronological age is so telling of overall health that physicians everywhere rely on it for life-or-death decisions, from evaluating the risks of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cancer.gov\/about-cancer\/causes-prevention\/risk\/age\">cancer<\/a> screening to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2021\/09\/13\/health\/rationing-care-hospital-beds-staff-explainer-wellness\/index.html#:~:text=For%20instance%2C%20if%20a%20hospital, year%2Dold%20patient%20with%20lung\">rationing<\/a> hospital beds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If there\u2019s one phrase the June 2024 U.S. presidential debate may entirely eliminate from the English vocabulary it\u2019s that age is a meaningless number. Often attributed to boxer Muhammad Ali, who grudgingly retired at age 39, this centuries-old idea has had far-reaching consequences in global politics, as life expectancy more than doubled since the start [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":636,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,11,269,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-193629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biological","category-biotech-medical","category-life-extension","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/636"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193629\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}