“My grandfather lived to be 98 years old so I’m looking forward to living a long life”. A statement we may have heard uttered a time or two over the years. Aging and the study of it has gripped researchers for some time now and they ask the question, why do we even have to age in the first place? Aging is something we all take for granted and is something we accept as our eventual fate. However, with our cells consistently dying and replenishing over the years, why do we eventually grow old? As humans, it may appear unfair that our life expectancy is less than some birds and turtles that inhabit the same planet.
Research experts, gerontologists specifically, study the aging process and believe that aging – or senescence as the science community calls it – has a cause, which means we should also be able to find a cure for it. The perspectives on senescence and mortality are varied. One believes that we age because we simply wear out. A different opinion on aging is that growing old is a precoded destiny within us and still another is an amalgamation of both views.
All life forms are undoubtedly unique from synthetic objects. Anything that is made by man has an expiry date to it and will eventually give up the ghost, as it were, but a living organism of some kind has the capability to fix what ails it, it can repair itself. To cite an example of this, bend a branch and even break it, or if a human breaks a bone, the life form in trouble will heal itself eventually and often as in humans the repaired area will be stronger than before.
An Interesting hypothesis about life endurance and breaking down concerns the rate of living premise. This can be summed up using the phrase – a candle that burns brighter burns faster. Some have suggested that a faster heart rate means a person will not live as long. The suggestion has some worth but fails when evaluated in science. The process of senescence and physiological fatigue seems to involve precoding more than anything else.
The regeneration of cells would appear to hold the truth to the question of aging. In general, human cells will reproduce consistently by DNA replication. Using this method a human skeleton is reconstituted every ten years and each second millions of human cells are regenerated. Live cells also have the capability to right copy errors in DNA and continue to renew themselves for decades and will do so until something indicates to the cell that its run is over and it will shut off and die. Research scientists in the field of genetics and aging, microbiologists and gerontologists alike are deeply perplexed by why this occurs.
Research biologists have found that the last part of the DNA chromosome, which is known as the telomere, gets shorter every time a cell is regenerated. When a telomere is reduced by twenty percent of its original span, that cells facility to reproduce itself is thwarted and it dies. This has been described as being like the plastic cap on the end of a shoe lace – once it come off the lace will unravel and it is redundant. However, this does not explain the cause of the entire failure and eventual mortality of the whole life form.
From a scientific perspective, the genetic makeup holds a key that acts as an indicator to the life form to grow old and perish. Doctor Ronald Klatz, the founder and president of an Institute dedicated to anti aging research believes that growing old is not predestined. There is technology that is available now that will impede, thwart and maybe reverse dramatically the physiological weakening and illnesses we know of today as natural aging process. Obvious interest in this technology abounds so what is it? Klatz himself consumes about sixty pills daily and holds out hope he will live on until 130 years of age. Godspeed Dr. Klatz.
As we wait for science to disentangle the theories and make them an actuality, we are left to our own devices regarding life extension. We need to eat right, live right and reduce our stress while getting enough exercise. It remains important that we sustain our good health while we wait for the advancement in longevity or we die trying.
Wed, Nov 25, 2009
Bioscience, Gerontology, Longevity