Can people actually die from old age, or is there always some underlying condition at their old age that causes each death?
In: Biology
It’s both. As when you use a copier and make a copy of a copy of a copy and it starts to fade and small imperfections begin to be magnified, your DNA makes [copies](https://genetics.thetech.org/original_news/news91) of itself over time and this too begins to happen. Small imperfections become magnified over time and issues from cancer, to improper DNA methylation, and [telomere](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17943234/) disregulation can occur all leading to a higher mortality rates.
There has to be a cause of death. People die of basically three things:
1- cardiac arrest
2- pulmonary arrest
3- electrolyte imbalance .
These are known as terminal events and is how anyone dies of anything. Something has to cause it.
When you look at statistics the overwhelming major cause of death is cardiovascular disease and cancer in second.
“Old Age” is a euphemism, that is a mild or indirect word or expression substituted for one considered to be too harsh or blunt when referring to something unpleasant or embarrassing. Since death is a pretty uncomfortable topic for most folks, saying that grandpa died of “old age” is a comfortable way to express it.
In reality, no. People do not die of old age. They die from something that might be *related* to their age, but being old does not kill you directly. Instead, death comes from organ failure (usually the heart) or an infection that the body could not fight off (often pneumonia). So from a medical perspective saying someone died of old age is more like saying “they died from one of the common ways that old people die, there is no sign of foul play, and the death was not unexpected *(edit:) so we’re not going to bother to do an autopsy or otherwise worry to much about this beyond following proper procedure to take the body to a morgue*.”
We usually talk about functional reserve in Medicine, which refers to your ability to “take a hit”. As you get older, this decreases, so it’s easier for you to suffer some event, and to also die from it. So you don’t really die of old age, but old age predisposes you to die from any other number of things
There is always an underlying condition, but it’s still accurate to say “old age” because every day in almost every way, your body is fighting off lethal shit. Right now your body is killing cancerous cells, defeating infections, and rebuilding your systems. But after a certain age, it all gets to be too much for the body.
I took Biology class in college and aging was one of the most interesting topics in that class. Basically what happens is, the cells in our body slowly stop working overtime after we reach a centain age (they do not regenerate). At this point aging kicks in and we face the consequences such as diseases.
In New Zealand, the elderly are mentally assessed before any major operation and if the healthcare system finds reduced mental capacity, a life saving operation would not be performed.
Dad had a heart valve replacement but if he had failed his mental acuity test, he would not have received that operation and likely would have died of “old age”, but really it would have been an untreated heart issue.
No one has ever died of old age. There is always a medical cause. Old age and deterioration causes these…. but are not the cause of death. It’s always something like a heart attack, stroke, etc.
Why do you dislike me so?
i would like to say just like a car you can keep replacing parts to keep the thing alive
humans arnt there yet to keep u alive for ever
is the 12 year old the same person 90 years later
dont know, but im 40 somthin and am still the 12 year old me
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