We must rethink our healthcare system and the way we look at diseases. This is the main message from the expert panel that discussed „Ageing and health“ at the BIO-Europe 2016.
„We are facing an incredible increase of people above 60 years“, says Peter-Andreas Loeschmann, Senior Medical Director at Pfizer Innovative Health. Going hand in hand with this is an increase in chronic diseases. Ageing may cause too many problems when you are not healthy: Age-related related or neurologic diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, cancer or diabetes type II may arise.
For an accurate way of treating these diseases we have to start much earlier than the very last stage of the illness, states Gregor MacDonald, Senior Director for Neuroscience at Johnson & Johnson. MacDonald: „How did the disease start? A disease like Alzheimer’s probably started 20 years earlier than at the stage we first see it. We have to ask if we can identify signs at an early stage.“
Looking at indicators as biomarkers or the genetics around a disease are possible ways to detect and later to prevent age-related diseases. Thus, our healthcare system needs a complete shift from treating diseases at their end stage to preventing them before they even develop. By doing this ageing can become a healthier process, one day.
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