Experts call on the World Health Organization, governments and medical communities to develop common classifications and systems to diagnose and treat age-related diseases.

An international team of researchers has put forward a position statement, published in Science, which lays out a new healthcare framework to help aging populations stay healthier for longer.

The statement is a call to action to governments, the WHO and the scientific and medical communities to come together and develop classifications and staging systems utilizing the framework as the basis for diagnosing and treating age-related diseases, including directly treating all aging tissues and organs.

Age-related diseases without adequate diagnostic criteria and severity staging limit the ability for prevention or treatment and the ability to develop new drugs and interventions. Ultimately, this impacts the quality of life for older members of society.

Unmet needs of aging populations

People worldwide are living longer. Aging populations bring urgent and unmet healthcare and economic needs related to chronic disease and multi-morbidity, which require solutions at both the national and international level.

Today, for the first time in history, most people can expect to live into their sixties and beyond. By 2020, the number of people aged 60 years and older will outnumber children younger than 5 years. By 2050, the world’s population aged 60 years and older is expected to total 2 billion, up from 900 million in 2015 (https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/ageing-and-health).

Common conditions in older age include back and neck pain and osteoarthritis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes, sarcopenia and dementia. Additionally, as people age, they are more likely to experience several conditions at the same time, including advanced conditions that may have been building up over decades, which then lead to other diseases and health risks. Dedicated research, new disease terminology, metrics and analytical methods are needed for a wide range of aging issues in order to effectively diagnose and treat them.

Designing the framework

Currently the classification and severity staging of age-related diseases is limited because it is inconsistent, incomplete and non-systematic. Some types of disease that can be found in many organs, such as intrinsic organ aging, or organ atrophy or wasting, are classified in one organ but not others.

To help tackle this problem an international group of experts, scientists and physicians, led by University of Liverpool Honorary Fellow Dr. Stuart Calimport and supported by University of Liverpool Reader Dr. Joao Pedro de Magalhaes, created a position statement which lays out a framework for properly and comprehensively classifying and staging the severity of age-related diseases. Importantly the statement includes aging at the tissue and organ level as well as organ atrophy, pathologic remodelling and calcification, and age-related systemic and metabolic diseases.

 “This framework will increase our ability to develop drugs and interventions that target the processes of aging and that can accumulate with age, which would have unprecedented benefits in relation to the treatment and prevention of serious diseases,” says Dr. Calimport.

“Aging is the greatest biomedical challenge of the 21st century,” says Dr. Magalhaes. “As such, this framework will increase our ability to develop longevity drugs and interventions that target diseases related to the aging process.”

While aging is classified as a condition within the WHO International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) in relation to intrinsic skin aging and photoaging, the framework proposes the classification of aging as conditions in all organs, along with the comprehensive classification of all aging-related diseases and syndromes.

Buck Institute professor Judith Campisi, PhD, was a co-author of the position statement. “Bringing WHO and other governments into the effort to identify and classify aging as a condition is the only way we are going to be able to address the unmet needs of aging populations around the world,” she says. “This effort provides a framework that would guide policy and practice and enable appropriate interventions and the allocation of resources. This is particularly important in countries that have fewer resources to devote to caring for an aging population.”

As part of this work, initial classification submissions related to age-related diseases in line with the framework have already been submitted to the latest version of WHO ICD-11.

Researchers from the following establishments were also involved in the position statement; Harvard University, Stanford University, Cambridge University, Imperial College London, and University College London.

Citation: To help aging populations, classify organismal senescence, Science, November 1, 2019