Aging is inevitable. How do we face it?
2022-04-22
Aging is a long slope of life People often say, "love is the eternal theme." In fact, death is an "eternal theme". One of the reasons why it is "eternal" is that it has no solution, and the world cannot have a real experience of death. Second, because it is important, in the words of Professor Wang Yifang of the school of medical humanities of Peking University, if you don't solve the confusion about death, you will always live in the fear of death and be in great pain on your deathbed. From a social perspective, the fear of death is also an important reason for excessive medical treatment and excessive rescue in the dying stage. Today, I want to focus on another issue closely related to death: aging. Like death, aging is also a necessity and a long slope of life. In addition to premature death caused by various reasons, most people will go to death through aging. Aging is the prelude to death. What is aging? The definition of the World Health Organization is: "aging is the process of gradual accumulation of various molecular and cellular damage in the body over time." Ge Wende, a famous medical humanities writer, showed through vivid cases: "aging is a series of continuous loss of function." Thomas Jefferson, the founding father of the United States, wrote to John Adams, the 78 year old second president of the United States at the age of 71, There is a paragraph in the letter that reads vividly: "our machines have been running for 70 or 80 years, and it can be expected that they will be damaged. One axle here, one wheel there, one gear now and one spring next time will all fail. Although we can repair them temporarily, the machines will eventually stop running." Aging is not only an independent state, but also interdependent with diseases. Figuratively speaking, aging and disease are cars running on two tracks, but they may change and merge at any time. On the one hand, aging is a hotbed of diseases, which will form and accelerate the progress of some diseases; On the other hand, diseases may boost the process of aging. However, no matter whether there is disease or not, when people reach a certain age, the body will be in the process of continuous aging, accumulate to a certain extent, and usually enter the situation of "dying without illness". The domino effect, of course, is not triggered by the disease. Between aging and death, there is a period called deep aging, which is called the end of life in medicine, that is, the stage of hospice care (hospice care). This work is very important and related to the quality of everyone's life at the end. Aging is a process, which will occur one after another throughout the body. It only happens in different times and in different order between people. When people are aging, the most common and prominent manifestations are the narrowing of blood vessels in the whole body and the lack of blood supply to organs, which leads to the decline of the function of various organs. Among them, serious cardiovascular and cerebrovascular atherosclerosis may lead to myocardial infarction and stroke. When people are aging, their immune function generally decreases and their anti infection ability is low. A small amount of pathogenic microorganisms can easily lead to serious infection. Infection occurs in multiple organs, especially the lungs. When people are aging, the levels of various hormones decrease, resulting in muscle atrophy, weakness, osteoporosis, easy to fall and fracture; The number of brain cells and their connections are reduced, and the memory is reduced. In severe cases, it will lead to mental disorders such as dementia, and dementia and amnesia will occur one after another; The chance of gene errors in replication, transcription and translation increases, errors are superimposed and accumulated, and the error correction ability caused by the decline of immunity will be weakened, which will greatly increase the incidence of cancer All these not only show the decline of human physiological functions, but also often lead to a variety of diseases. Aging not only increases the probability of disease, but also significantly changes the nature and pathological process of disease. For the same disease, the clinical manifestation, treatment response and prognosis of the elderly will be very different from those of ordinary adults. For example, even when the elderly are seriously infected, they may not have a fever and the increase of leukocyte count is not obvious; The tolerance of the elderly to surgical blows and drug side effects was significantly reduced. Therefore, the diagnosis and treatment of diseases of the elderly should also be different from that of ordinary adults. We do not pay enough attention to this clinically, which often affects the medical quality and even causes medical accidents. Aging is a comprehensive process, with multiple organ functions declining one after another. The elderly often have a variety of diseases at the same time. Therefore, to see a doctor for the elderly, we must pay more attention to systematic analysis, distinguish primary and secondary, and solve the main contradictions. If we divide the diagnosis and treatment according to the disease one by one, we will inevitably take care of one and lose the other, and even conflict with each other, resulting in serious consequences. Now many elderly people take 7-8 or even more than a dozen drugs a day, which is the result of separate diagnosis and treatment. Doctors in each department only consider the diseases of a certain system and an organ, and lack overall consideration. Drugs have toxic and side effects, and these toxic and side effects also have superposition effects. Even if the toxic and side effects are not obvious, various effects may conflict with each other. Therefore, taking multiple drugs at the same time is often harmful to the body. Geriatrics experts have reached a consensus that the elderly should not take more than five drugs at the same time every day. You can make a difference to aging Since people will lose multiple organ functions during aging, and most of them cannot return to normal, we must learn to "coexist peacefully" with them. For example, studies have shown that as men age, the possibility of cancer lesions in the prostate gradually increases. In the autopsy of the remains of male patients with other causes of death, it was found that the detection rate of prostate cancer lesions in patients over 70 years old was as high as 82%; In the anatomy of female remains, the detection rate of cervical cancer and breast cancer in elderly women is also quite high. Compared with other lesions, these cancer lesions in the elderly are really not a big problem, and can "coexist peacefully". Conversely, if we continue to increase screening efforts and take "encirclement and suppression" treatment for such lesions, it will cause great damage to the body and spirit. In aging, the continuous decline of the functions of various organs of the human body will inevitably lead to diseases, either here or there. Finally, either this serious illness or that serious illness led to our death. In fact, it is not a specific disease that causes our death. The real cause of death is aging, because we have been exhausted. But now we are used to artificially finding out a disease as the cause of death and denying "dying of old age" and "dying of old age". For aging, we are not completely unable to make a difference. We can prevent unhealthy lifestyle, such as premature aging caused by smoking, alcoholism, sedentary and other reasons, and even delay the aging process to a certain extent. We can also actively explore some healthy lifestyles. 20 years ago, my lumbar vertebra had degenerative lesions, and then developed; Eight years ago, he developed severe symptoms. Although the symptoms have been alleviated after conservative treatment, low back pain has become my normal life. In addition, my digestion and absorption capacity decreased significantly, and my body became thinner and thinner; The vision that has been proud of has gradually decreased from 1.5 to 0.7, and cataract; There are more than 20 abnormalities listed in the physical examination report, including 4 ~ 5 suspicious shadows found in imaging examination (among which prostate cancer is highly suspected), elevated tumor markers and abnormal immune cell function. The obvious acceleration of the aging process prompted me to start fitness training 3 years ago, 2-3 times a week. I am glad to see that my physical condition has improved quickly, my muscles have developed, and my whole person has stood up. My friends praised me for "not getting old", and I feel that the pace of aging seems to have slowed down. When I read Jin Yong's martial arts novels when I was young, I often lamented that the old Wulin people in the book are not only vigorous, but also move freely around the waist and abdomen. Presumably, they don't rely on studying the secret script, but on practicing in the cold and summer, and they don't stop over the years. The sunset is also a beautiful scene The above is about the aging problem at the physiological level. In fact, the spiritual meaning of aging also needs to be deeply explored. Spirit and physiology are closely related. I have observed that in the face of the same aging situation and the problems of more and more chronic diseases accompanying aging, different people will have different attitudes. Some people accept it calmly, deal with it calmly, and maintain their love for life, just like the silver haired chorus of Shanghai Alumni Association of Tsinghua University, "returning is still a teenager"; There are also people who are in the panic of disease all day, as well as the frustration and loss of the ups and downs of their living conditions. Different attitudes depend on one's understanding of life and death and the corresponding mental state, which in turn affects the quality of one's later life and even the process of aging. Aging is inevitably accompanied by the decline of a series of physiological functions and the pain of diseases. But from the spiritual level, life has gone through all stages of childhood, adolescence, youth and middle age, seen the world, experienced, more mature in mind and thought, and better able to understand the true meaning of life and life. If you practice well, you can be calm like water, not surprised by flattery or disgrace, detached from all kinds of frustrations and losses in life, have an insight into the world and enjoy the situation. Such a realm is beyond the reach of ordinary young people. In this regard, Chinese traditional culture has a very unique insight and expression. A poem by Liu Yuxi, a poet of the Tang Dynasty, vividly expounds this truth. The first half of the poem describes the physical state of aging: "who cares about aging, who will pity when they grow old. The body is thin, the hair is thin, and the crown is biased. Waste books, cherish eyes, and moxibustion is with the year." But the second half of the poem shows his spiritual world: "you still know the classics and things, reading people is like reading rivers. It's lucky to think carefully, so it's natural. Mo daosang and Yu evening is full of rosy clouds." Yes, the setting sun shines in the evening, and the sky is full of red clouds. The past is full of history. My old friend cherishes it, puts down everything and welcomes the new life. What a beautiful scene! At present, we live in the torrent of the information age. All kinds of information about life knowledge and life attitude are surging. If we take the perception and discussion of aging as the eternal topic of mankind, how should we grasp it? Which is "old" or "new"? Modern life knowledge is certainly new, but is the ancient and vital spiritual realm, or life attitude, constantly reminding us and taking care of us at the level of human wisdom? Dear old friends, let's grow old and happy! (Xinhua News Agency)
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