Just how bad are we at treating age-related diseases?

Progress vs. stagnation in age‑related disease

• Commenters agree we’ve dramatically reduced many historical killers (TB in rich countries, hookworm, black lung, infectious diseases, some cancers), but have done poorly on classic age‑related degeneration (Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, IPF, macular degeneration, neurodegenerative diseases).
• Disagreement over terms like “conquered”: some see big mortality drops and early‑stage survival gains (e.g., breast cancer, prostate cancer) as success; others argue that anything still common, lethal, or disabling is not “conquered.”

Treatment vs. prevention and behavior

• Many argue we’re far better at chronic management than curing, and “successes” often come from prevention and environment (better sanitation, nutrition, shoes, fewer miners) rather than drugs.
• Strong thread claiming many “age‑related” diseases are largely lifestyle‑driven (diet, exercise, alcohol, obesity, smoking); counter‑arguments say age and biology still dominate and behavior change is extremely hard in practice.
• GLP‑1 drugs are cited as evidence that behavior is biologically constrained, not just willpower.

Metrics: clinical proxies vs quality of life

• Frustration that trials focus on surrogate markers (lesion size, biomarkers) rather than quantity and quality of life.
• Acknowledgment that QoL studies are expensive and slow; proxies are cheaper but often weakly linked to real‑world benefit.

Neurodegeneration and aging biology

• Alzheimer’s singled out as emblematic failure; mention of past research fraud possibly delaying progress.
• Neurodegenerative diseases seen as fundamentally unsolved; some view curing them as tantamount to achieving biological immortality.
• Speculation about aging as a malleable process (e.g., cell reprogramming, long‑lived species), but current interventions like young‑blood transfusions are described as weakly supported and ethically fraught.

Public health, risk behaviors, and new threats

• Tobacco control cited as a rare behavioral success requiring massive social and political pressure.
• Debates over vaping and cannabis: how harmful vs cigarettes, dose differences, second‑hand risk, and whether society should treat them equivalently.
• Concern that eradication strategies (vaccines, PrEP for HIV) run into compliance, education, and misinformation barriers.

End‑of‑life, ethics, and society

• Several comments highlight the misery of long decline (Alzheimer’s, advanced cancer), aggressive life‑prolonging care with poor QoL, and the appeal of legal assisted suicide.
• Some see our biggest failure not as medical but philosophical: inability to accept and plan for death.

Broader social and system factors

• Loneliness, insomnia, polypharmacy, and loss of function are seen as “new” geriatric burdens now that people outlive earlier killers.
• Observations that national systems differ: public systems may push lifestyle change more, private ones may profit from long‑term treatment dependence.