Review Says People Don’t Die of “Old Age” but of Specific Diseases

Overview

• The Genomic Psychiatry review by Maryam Keshavarz and Dan Ehninger synthesizes decades of autopsy evidence across humans and animals.
• In humans, heart attacks, strokes, and cardiopulmonary failure account for most deaths, including among centenarians previously described as healthy.
• Cross-species patterns differ, with mice and some other mammals typically dying of cancer, fruit flies often succumbing to intestinal failure, and worms losing the ability to swallow.
• The authors argue that longevity interventions such as rapamycin and intermittent fasting extend mouse lifespan primarily by postponing cancer rather than by slowing an underlying aging process.
• The review casts biological age tests as predictive but not explanatory, saying they correlate with outcomes without identifying what drives aging.