This only prolongs suffering. Everyone wants to grow old, but nobody wants to be old.
This fear is so widespread that the science of aging even has an official term for it: the Tithonus error. It goes back to the Greek myth of Tithonus. His divine lover asked Zeus to grant Tithonus immortality, but forgot to ask him for eternal youth as well. Tithonus was thus doomed to decay physically without end, without ever being able to die. When people today hear the words "life extension", they often inevitably picture a global nursing home in which the painful, frail final phase of life is merely stretched out over decades.
However, this is a fundamental misunderstanding of how regenerative medicine works. The goal of these therapies is not to extend the time during which we are sick. Rather, it is about preventing us from reaching this state in the first place. Defeating biological aging means removing the phase of frailty from life - not drawing it out.
Furthermore, biological data show that the Tithonus error is simply impossible in practice. The state of frailty cannot be prolonged to any significant extent, quite simply because frailty in itself already represents a massive risk. A body marked by age-related damage is extremely vulnerable to even the smallest disturbances. Decades of laboratory research show that all medical interventions that have substantially extended the lifespan of model organisms have always done so by extending their healthspan.⁴ The only medical way to keep a body alive longer is to keep it young and healthy.
External links on frailty (all in English)
Articles by FightAging:
Fear of an Extended Old Age of Frailty and Decrepitude
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2013/08/fear-of-an-extended-old-age-of-frailty-and-decrepitude/
The Ubiquity of the Tithonus Error
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2004/03/the-ubiquity-of-the-tithonus-error/
Article by the Lifespan Extension Advocacy Foundation:
https://www.lifespan.io/news/why-a-longer-life-does-not-mean-longer-decrepitude/