Three models of medicine. (An integrated theory of aging and age-associated diseases)

The hypothesis considers that the same major (non-infectious) human diseases can develop according to three (or four) different models of disease formation - ecological, genetic, ontogenetic or accumulative (degenerative). The existence of these models is determined not only by the overlapping stochastic and programmed factors of aging but also by a possible role of stochastic factors in the formation of programmed processes. This role determines the rate of realization of the body development program, and, thus, the rate of aging and formation of age-associated pathology. The identification of the four models of diseases formation and, in particular, the ontogenetic model, provide additional means of forestalling aging and age-associated diseases.