Background: Mortality doubles approximately every 6-7 years during adulthood. This exponential increase in death risk with chronological age is the population-level manifestation of ageing, and often referred to as the rate-of-ageing.
Objective: We explore whether the onset of severe chronic disease alters the rate-of-ageing.
Methods: Using Swedish register data covering the entire population of the birth cohorts 1927-30, we analyse whether being diagnosed with myocardial infarction, diabetes or cancer results in a deviation of the rate-of-ageing from those of the total population. We also quantify the long-term mortality effects of these diseases, using ages with equivalent mortality levels for those with disease and the total population.
Results: None of the diseases revealed a sustained effect on the rate-of-ageing. After an initial switch upwards in the level of mortality, the rate-of-ageing returned to the same pace as for the total population. The time it takes for the rate to return depends on the disease. The long-term effects of diabetes and myocardial infarction amount to mortality levels that are equivalent to those aged 5-7 years older in the total population. For cancer, the level of mortality returns to that of the total population.
Conclusion: Our results suggest an underlying process of ageing that causes mortality to increase at a set pace, with every year older we become. This process is not affected by disease history. The persistence of the rate-of-ageing motivates a critical discussion of what role disease prevention can play in altering the progression of ageing.
Keywords: cancer; chronic disease; diabetes; myocardial infarction; older people; rate-of-ageing.
© The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Geriatrics Society.