Aging and Diseases - Essay Example

Aging and Disease Number: Due: Aging and Disease Every human being or animals experience the process of ageing in their lives. This process is not caused by genes and therefore there are no genes that support the ageing process. The theory of evolution however assumes of the relationship between the age and the body maintenance. People who often do not take good care of themselves during the young age period more than often experience difficulties and are prone to more diseases during old age. The lifespan of a human being is controlled by genes that are involved in the internal body functions such as metabolism, DNA repair, cellular senescence and antioxidant systems and cell death (Robert n.d. ). He continues to assert that the functions of these genes in the body functions usually decrease with time as the human being ages due to problems experienced in DNA multiplication and the damage of macromolecules that finally cause the increase in the number of senescent cells and damaged tissue. Ageing could therefore be more complex but of course a natural process that cause damage of the body cells, their tissues and molecules, that make the body cells non-functional and increase the risk of death. The ageing process occurs at different levels of a human being that include the process when macromolecules are modified and damaged, changes in the way the body genes function, changes in cellular biochemistry and the metabolic rate, the failure of the body tissues to function properly, and the change in the functioning of the whole of the body system. Ageing is a major problem for most developed countries that cause lots of death caused by diseases such as cancer, neurodegenerative, cardiovascular disorder, arthritis and Alzheimer’s disease. By understanding how the ageing process comes about is vital to help with proper management of the disease problems and to work towards coming with proper prevention ways of the ageing complications and other age related diseases (Schuiling, Robinia, & Nye 2011). A major feature of the ageing process of an organism is the immunosenescence discussed above that is the key to some of the immunological changes that are experienced due to old age. Once an organism is exposed to antigens such as bacteria, viral that are described to be the causes of stress cause the T cells to decrease. T cells are a type of white blood cells that help protect the body from diseases. Moreover, they act along with other white blood cells to offer immune system that guard the body from external infections. Therefore once they are not enough in the body of an organism they organism is vulnerable to a number of diseases (Shiping, JianWei, & Eryuan 2011). Moreover, the decrease of T cells in the body of an aged organism lead to lead to accumulation of memory T and effector CD8+CD28- T cells that are responsible for the production of inflammatory cytokines. Another consequence caused by the decrease in T cells is the increase in the number of macrophages and related cells that create an imbalance between inflammatory and anti-inflammatory networks. This lead to a condition called Inflamm-ageing that is characterized by frequent infections in the body of an aged organism (Robert n.d.). According to Robert, ageing is therefore not a disease by itself but the ageing process makes the body to be invaded by different diseases due to lack of white blood cell count in the body. In addition the ageing process leads to poor health of organisms. Thus any process, or disorder, or disease caused by the ageing process is a major concern and needs attention. He continues to say that osteoporosis is a disease of the elderly that causes bones to become weak and brittle. People with this disease cannot easily bend over or even small stresses can cause the bones to fracture. Related fractures of the bone can be in the hips, wrist or even on the spine. Therefore people with old age experience the problem of bathing or doing small exercises as their bones are vulnerable to fractures. Bones are living tissues that grow more often, thus the osteoporosis disease occurs when the creation of the new bone does not match with the old bone . This disease is experienced by both aged men and women more so the women past menopause are at high risk due to their low sex hormones. This disease is characterized by the reduction in the density of bones, their strength decreases and finally lead to the fracture. Organisms with this disease experience frequent fractures of the bone. Since bones are living tissues and need to grow more often with time, they are made of proteins, collagen, and calcium that makes the bone more stronger. Aged people lack this and thus have weak bones than their counterparts at the early age (Schuiling, Robinia, & Nye 2011). They believe that weaker bone problem increase with the progression in the age of an organism. These disorder make a bone break even with less injuries that in normal circumstances would not make a bone to break. This can be in the form of cracking or fracturing depending on the location of the bone either in the hips, ribs, spine or in the wrists that are common areas of the disease. The disease can be caused by factors such as age, the fact that one is a female, low body weight, low sex hormones more so during the process of menopause, and smoking. It is evident that all these factors are seen in older people. Even though this disorder is a problem with the majority of the aged people, it can moreover be present without having symptoms since the disorder only involves the fracture of bones and therefore before the bone fracture the disorder would not be present in the given organism. Therefore patients with the disease may go for a long time without experiencing any symptoms but however bone fractures are characterized by: Pains in the specific area of the fracture is the major symptoms in both men and women Shiping, JianWei, & Eryuan 2011). Moreover, the patients that have fractures in the spine can feel a lot of pain that originates from the back of the sides of the body. Frequent fractures of the spine can lead to chronic back pain problems as well as loss of height and the curve of the spine caused by the collapse of the vertebrae. Patients with the disease often develop normal fractures even while walking and the condition is referred to as “stress fracture” and this is more common in elderly women. Fractures of the hip can be caused by the result of falling in the typical circumstances while the osteoporosis condition can be caused as a result of serious accidents. People with the osteoporosis disorder usually heal slowly because bone fractures normally heal at a slow rate. Osteoporosis results in decreased quality of one’s life as they spend a good part of their time nursing wounds, considerable pain in the affected areas, do not attend jobs and thus lost work days and may lead to permanent disability. In the past patients with the disease often developed pneumonia and blood clots in their leg veins that more so travels to the lungs. This condition was caused due to the long stay in their beds after the hip fracture. This disorder also increases the risk of death as one person who suffers a hip or spine fracture has a high probability of suffering the fracture in the subsequent years. Although the disorder is now taken in a serious way, in the past it was just taken as a syndrome. This disease has been a major concern to most doctors and the identification of its pathogens ant its epidemiological aspects. Pathogenesis of Osteoporosis The ages of 12-16 years is the age bracket where both boys and girls experience a mass increase in the bones in their bodies. At this age both increase their bone formation process and it is believed that boys reach the peak of bone formation later than women. This makes the men’s bone mineral density to be higher as compared to women’s at all parts of the bone locations. This directly relates to the cross-sectional area in the male’s bones being higher than that of women. Women get high rate of bone increase at puberty stages that is characterized by high hormone growth secretion, higher serum IGF-I levels, and at this stage they experience rapid growth of estradiol and testosterone (Robert n.d. ). In addition, the puberty stage in women sees the rate of calcium absorption being high while the skeletal accretion is low. All these processes combine to form bone mass in the body of a human being that falls later on in life. Research shows that a greater mass of bones in the male person was acquired during the peak period that is normally between 12-16 years. Several factors determine the peak bone mass of a human being that include: Hormones influence, the environmental factors, and the heritable factors all play a great role. All the above influence the estrogen/testosterone, the growth hormones, Vitamin D levels in the body of an organism. All the above combine in creating a healthy bone in humans and in case any is not properly given or received in enough may result to higher chances of alterations in the bone mass during peak period. This may affect a person throughout their lives as the bone density would be lower as a result. Moreover, gonadal steroids are important hormones that are needed for both bone maintenance and acquisition of bone mass (Shiping, JianWei, & Eryuan 2011). They continue to assert that during puberty the estrogen and testosterone hormones combine to create a high bone mass in the body of a human being. Estrogen may also be necessary for epephysial closure. According to research, men with high levels of estrogen and low levels of aromatase need estradiol for bone mass acquisition. These kind of men are characterized by tall stature of unfused epiphysis, and a low bone mass. Similar studies can be drawn from women with low bone mass. Epidemiological Aspects It is not often an easy task estimating the number of people that are suffering from this disorder as the symptoms alone cannot be easily seen. However, this can be done using the diagnostic criterion and by fully understanding what the disease entails. In the early days the disease was not diagnosed and only women that had bone fracture would be treated. This disease was merely a syndrome than a disease as it has lately been taken more seriously. The hip fractures, spine fractures were more taken to be as a result of aging and the fractures were so ignored with respect to treatment(Shiping, JianWei, & Eryuan 2011). However, as time went by there was needed to treat the disease as some people who were diagnosed with the disease were neither too old, the measurement of the bone had changed all this perspective and thus people were made aware that the single bone minority measurement at any sight of the bone skeleton was a clear indication of one suffering from spine or hip fractures in the future. With time onwards the definition of the term osteoporosis changed and people would now view it as a disease just like HIV/ AIDS or Cancer that were never ignored in society. It became clear that a lot of people were suffering from the disease when the World Health Organization (WHO) decided to have a standard measure for a normal single bone mineral density that was put at 2.5 in the hip or the help of some postmenopause women. Hence women who had the measure of a single bone mineral density below 2.5 they were at risk of the osteoporosis disease. Other studies that included The Study of Osteoporotic Fractures (SOF), gave better estimates for women who were at risk of suffering from the disease. In the recent years, research shows that there are a lot of people especially women suffering from osteoporosis and this increase exponentially with age. Moreover, women are more likely to suffer from fractures than men, but the compression fractures are more difficult to estimate as they have no specific shape of occurrence. According to research, the loss of the bones due to aging or lack of estrogen hormones is a characteristic of pathophysiologic disorder that is seen during the early stages of osteoporosis. However, the use of glucocorticoids for both men and women results in low single bone measurement density or the total number of people with osteoporosis fractures (Robert n.d. ). Diagnostic Strategy Normal bones are often thin and light. Therefore a patient suffering from osteoporosis can be identified easily by use of an X-ray. However, the use of X-rays has some shortcomings as by the time it discovers the presence of osteoporosis a patient would have lost almost 30% of their bones. In addition they are not accurate indicators of the disease. This implies that the appearance of a bone on the X-ray might be affected by the degree of light the patient was exposed to. Therefore the osteoporosis bodies recommend the use of a dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry scan for diagnosis of the disease. Diagnosis of the disease involves comparing the normal bone density of the patient to the standard single bone measure. However one needs to know that osteopenia is the condition that results from less bone loss as compared to osteoporosis and thus this problem can be more serious when the patient uses other risk factors such as smoking, or use of cortisone steroids as they increase the chances of developing fractures of the bone. Progression and Monitoring of Osteoporosis According to osteoporosis medical bodies, it is not recommended for routine bone testing as it is scientifically inadvisable. Bone testing is not just like any other disease that need to be checked because even if the doctor discovers that a patient has lost a lot of bone density there would be nothing much that can be done as it cannot be refilled. Moreover, the scanning machine cannot be able to differentiate between an increase in bone density due to treatment and the initial bone density and thus it is of no help to keep on checking of the bone density (Schuiling, Robinia, & Nye 2011). Treatment and Prevention It is often very important to prevent a disease than treating since treatment can be costly. However, should the worse happen then treatment is the solution. The purpose of osteoporosis treatment is to prevent bone loss or fracture and this involves increasing the bone density and their strength. But in case of early detection of the disease it would be possible to get more time to treat the disease but although there is no complete cure for bone fractures. Thus it is important to prevent as building a bone that has been fractured would be a problem. The treatment and prevention measures would involve: Changing some of the habits in life such as smoking of cigarette, excessive alcohol intake, doing daily exercises that would make the bones flexible, and taking of a balanced diet with calcium and Vitamin D. Moreover, the patient should be treated in order to stop bone loss and increase their strength, and treatment to increase bone formation (Robert n.d. ). Future In the future the testing methods of osteoporosis may change in order to come up with better ways to determine the changes in bone density that cannot be identified at the moment. This paper covers in depth about the aging problem and the diseases that are caused due to the age problem in both men and women. Moreover, it specifically deals with the osteoporosis disease in detail its development, pathogenesis and its treatment. References Robert L. (N.d.,), “Research Paper: Longevity and Aging and Post-genetic Mechanisms. Which target Choose for Postponing and Treating Age-Related Diseases. Viewed 15 March 2012. Schuiling, K, Robinia, K, & Nye, R. (2011), “Osteoporosis Update”. Journal of Midwifery & Women’s Health, 56, 6, pp. 615-627, Medline. Shiping, L., JianWei, L., & Eryuan Liao. (2011), “ Relationship between Body Composition and Age, Menopause and its Effects on Bone Mineral Density at Segmental Regions in Central Chinese Postmenopausal Elderly Women With and Witjout Osteoporosis”. Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics, 53, pp. e192-e197. Viewed 15 March 2012. Read More