Interviewer: I think if you ask most people, you know, if you could pick the way you would die, most people would say, "I just want to die of old age. I just want to die in my sleep and just wear out," so to speak. And you say that's kind of a backwards way of thinking, or might be.
Doctor: It really is a backwards way of thinking to say that one wants to die of old age. I mean sure, there are plenty of reasons why one might think that dying of natural causes is less grim than dying of Alzheimer's disease or cancer or cardiovascular disease. And of course we put an enormous amount of money into trying to prevent people from dying of those things, or indeed from having those diseases and the associated misery in the first place. But the thing is, that these diseases are aspects of aging. So the only difference between dying of a particular disease and dying of natural causes in old age is whether or not we've given a name to the condition you die of. You know, it's not much of a difference really. And furthermore, if we develop medicines which can prevent the accumulation of these various types of damage, the key thing to remember is that not only will that prevent the diseases of old age from emerging and progressing, it will also prevent the gradual functional decline that we don't give names to that eventually leads to death from natural causes. It's completely biological nonsensical to try to say that there is aging over here and the diseases of old age over here. You know, it's not that the disease of old age suddenly materialize by magic, they occur because they are consequences of aging.
Interviewer: Well so many people die from things other than old age. Where's the correction there to take care of the other diseases, the cancers, the heart disease, the things that kill people in 30's, 40's, and 50's?
Doctor: Well let's remember the first of all that very few cancers do kill people before the age of 50 or 60 and very few people die of heart disease before that age either. Those are very much parts of aging. They are age related diseases. Of course there are other diseases such as AIDS that kill people at a much younger age, and that's not what I work on. Though I do certainly feel that the more that we get a handle on the diseases and disabilities of old age, the more motivated we will be as a society to work harder to prevent other causes of death that affect people at a younger age, whether its infections or car accidents or whatever.