The Ageless Question?

Ex-Physicist turned Biologist, Andrew Steele poses the question 'Do we have to age?' (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jan/03/observer-magazine-do-we-have-to-age-biologist-andrew-steele). In essence, he medicalises the phenomenon, regarding it as something to be 'cured' by physicians (now where have we heard of that before?). His basic motivation seems worthy enough, as he equates aging with suffering. Steele notes that cancer, heart disease and stroke are more common in older people. I suspect, however, that his claim that they 'primarily occur because of the aging process', would be strongly contested. Clearly, environmental factors and life style, also have powerful effects on the incidences of these conditions. When challenged about the potential detrimental effect of extending people's lives to say 150, on over-population, he comes up with, what seems to me, a rather glib defence. Steele poses the question whether we would choose to invent aging as a 'cure' for over-population. Population is, however, a balance between natality (birth-rate), mortality (death-rate) and migration (not really much of an option on a finite planet). Over-population is a difficult and emotive concept but, again, it's not a medical condition. A question that should be dealt with by Steele is 'why, if aging is such a bad thing, is it such a common characteristic of the vast majority of living organisms?' The answer may lie in recognising that what might be bad for the individual, may be beneficial to the species. I appear to be already past my 'sell-by date'?