In humans, are diseases inevitable during old age?
There is a thought that aging itself should be considered a disease. In which case, death by disease is inevitable with our current level of medical technology.


  During the last 25 years, by targeting the underlying processes of aging biomedical scientists have been able to improve the health and lifespan of model organisms, from worms and flies, to rodents and fish. We can now consistently improve the lifespan of C. elegans by more than ten-fold (Ayyadevara et al., 2008), more than double the lifespan of flies and mice (Bartke et al., 2001; Sun et al., 2002), and improve the lifespan of rats and killifish by 30 and 59%, respectively (Valenzano et al., 2006; Zha et al., 2008) (see Figure ​Figure11 and Supplementary Table 1). Currently, our treatment options for the underlying processes of aging in humans are limited. However, with current progress in the development of geroprotective drugs, regenerative medicine, and precision medicine interventions, we will soon have the potential to slow down aging (Bulterijs, 2011, 2012).