The chief freelance geriatrician of the Ministry of Health spoke about modern aging
There are no fundamentally new age-related diseases in the modern world, and the number of people with dementia, diabetes, cancer and diseases of the musculoskeletal system has increased against the background of increasing life expectancy. Olga Tkacheva, chief freelance geriatrician of the Ministry of Health, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Director of the Russian Gerontological Research and Clinical Center (RGNC), told Izvestia about this.
For several decades, the biological nature of aging has not changed, but the conditions in which it takes place have changed, the source explained.
"Thanks to advances in clinical medicine, people are less likely to die prematurely and more likely to live into old age. However, an increase in life expectancy has not yet been accompanied by an equally rapid increase in healthy life expectancy. Therefore, it is more correct to say that old age has become more prolonged and manageable, but not necessarily easier. Although we have already started working on solving this problem," the expert noted.
These trends are related to the fact that more people are living to an age when the risk of such conditions is particularly high, and also to lifestyle — citizens have begun to move less with higher availability of food.
"More accurate diagnosis and an increase in life expectancy after diagnosis also have an impact," Tkacheva added.
According to WHO, the global burden of diabetes and Alzheimer's disease has more than doubled from 2000 to 2021, but this does not mean that today's elderly people suffer from them much more often than their peers in the past — it must be borne in mind that over the years, the availability of medicine and diagnostic capabilities have increased significantly, the geriatrician recalled..
Read more in the Izvestia article:
The Long Summer: how is the approach to working with elderly patients changing?
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
