Why do we age?
- Thread starter Special K
- Start date
No, evolution.
From a biological point of view there is no reason to go on living once you are sure that your offspring (and possibly your offsprings offsprings, as when grandparents help raise their grandchildrens) is doing ok and that you have succesfully spread your genes.
Your job is done.
I might be wrong but I think I read somehwere that there are actually a few species of fungi that can in theory live forever, but that would probably not be a good survival strategy for more advances creatures.
Sooner of later some species that did die and therefore evolved more quickly would win the evolutionary arms race.
From a biological point of view there is no reason to go on living once you are sure that your offspring (and possibly your offsprings offsprings, as when grandparents help raise their grandchildrens) is doing ok and that you have succesfully spread your genes.
Your job is done.
I might be wrong but I think I read somehwere that there are actually a few species of fungi that can in theory live forever, but that would probably not be a good survival strategy for more advances creatures.
Sooner of later some species that did die and therefore evolved more quickly would win the evolutionary arms race.
Well, not exactly. At least, not as I understand it. Cellular respiration requires oxygen to liberate energy. Cellular respiration has some by-products, "free radicals" that tend to break stuff down. (Feel free to correct if I'm wrong)
I also remember reading somewhere that, as cells reproduce, these whatsits (called telomeres) on the end of certain genes shorten. A cell cannot reproduce when the telomere is gone.
I think I remember hearing that as well, that every time a cell divides some of the DNA errors go uncorrected. If an error occurs that affects the cell's ability to regulate division, then cancer can occur. The errors occur in a very small percentage of the cell's DNA pairs, but I guess over time those little errors add up to produce big problems, is that correct?
Also how much of our DNA do we know the function of? If the DNA errors are random, then why do we not have an equal probability of getting cancer when we are young as when we are old? It seems one's chances of getting cancer increase with age. If any of the base pairs have an equal chance of replicating wrong, then shouldn't it be just as easy to be afflicted with cancer when you are a child as when you are older?
Rather than talking about mechanisms etc, ill go for a different tack.
We age because it is advantageous to do so. Not aging is a constant stuggle against entropy, and hence difficult- and there is no advantage to doing so. It takes 12 or so years to get to the point at which one can reproduce, another 12 to see your first children to 'adulthood' and then a few more to make sure you have a few remaining children. Beyond this, you are increasing the number of children and the strain associated with raising them whilst not improving success rates so rapidly. Environmental factors also make your life shorter that its 'natural' length, and more resources into better preservation inevitably impact elsewhere.
ie it makes sense from an evoltuionary pressure pov. If you require people to be 30 before they reproduce and kill off kids whose parents die before they turn 60 then you will get a pressure acting in the opposite sense, and evolution towards longer lifespans.. if the populace is small enough.
We age because it is advantageous to do so. Not aging is a constant stuggle against entropy, and hence difficult- and there is no advantage to doing so. It takes 12 or so years to get to the point at which one can reproduce, another 12 to see your first children to 'adulthood' and then a few more to make sure you have a few remaining children. Beyond this, you are increasing the number of children and the strain associated with raising them whilst not improving success rates so rapidly. Environmental factors also make your life shorter that its 'natural' length, and more resources into better preservation inevitably impact elsewhere.
ie it makes sense from an evoltuionary pressure pov. If you require people to be 30 before they reproduce and kill off kids whose parents die before they turn 60 then you will get a pressure acting in the opposite sense, and evolution towards longer lifespans.. if the populace is small enough.
Cancer is a disease of old age because many contributing factors must accumulate to cause it. This includes spontaneous and induced DNA damage. And all base pairs do not have an equal chance of replicating wrong - there are hot spots for oxidative damage and other lesions. There are also particular stretches of DNA that are prone to frameshift mutations such as in some forms of hereditary colon cancer where an inherited silent point mutations makes DNA polymerase less processive (replication machinery slips).
Loss of DNA repair functions can cause severe signs of aging such as Cockyne syndrome.
We are learning more and more about aging and cancer related genes every day, but we definitely do not know enough.
Loss of DNA repair functions can cause severe signs of aging such as Cockyne syndrome.
We are learning more and more about aging and cancer related genes every day, but we definitely do not know enough.
blckgrffn
Diamond Member
That is old age, that is the point, I think... cancer won't be cured, IMHO, just mitigated until it becomes unfeasible to do or the brain loses grip, whichever comes first.
Nat
Nat
Explanation of aging is quite technical. Your brain contains limited number of cells. It's huge, but limited. From certain point it can't accept more information. Consider HD of your PC is full. What to do in this case? If you can't accept new information you can consider yourself as dead. You can't buy a new more capacity HD, so you have only one way to delete all previously stored information and start from beginning. How to do that? It's quite simple, get wife or husband and make a child. So, it's a clone of your with empty harddrive. You can write some valuable information from your HD when you grow your kids.
- Jun 10, 2004
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In a sense it is "mechanical" the telomeres, or "caps" on the end of chromosomes, shorten with each DNA replication. This means they cannot go on forever without reaching their end. As the telomeres disappear, DNA is more susceptible to damage (hence we age).
RE: Cancer - Check this out!..
Ever worked in a factory and found that people will work with hazardous chemicals they KNOW will eventually make them deathly ill in unsafe conditions? Many many people making little over minimum wage that would string someone up for the mention of reporting to OSHA. Well, there are more people making much better livings off of cancer research and treatment than there are people dying from it. In this case, it's not even their own lives at stake. There exist multiple cures for cancer that you will likely never hear about in mainstream media or from doctors. One of my favorites you can find with google: amygdalin , Laetrile, Vitamin B-17 (not a true vitamin). At no cost other than coming in your food as it's rich in fruit seeds and grains other than wheat. Apricot seeds and bitter almonds (both illegal to sell in US raw) are high in it. People in the medical field I know will tell you that if there is a cure, you'll likely never see it.
RE: Living longer
Tobacco smoking seems to accelerate aging signs such as grey hair, wrinkles, poor physical health. It's impossible to eliminate bad things like Strontium-90 (fall out from the 331 nuclear bomb tests conducted by the US government), pesticides (even used on "organic" food), Frankenfood or (genetically modified foods with un-natural man made amino acids and proteins), mercury and lead (which is mysteriously showing up in water supplies), etc. The food we eat is less nutritious than it used to be thanks to no resting of the land, man made fertilizers, not returning to the land what was taken, processing such as: bleaching/ pasteurizing/ hydrogenating, and storing. Other than eating healthy, and avoiding oxidants is moderate excersize, and lack of stress or worry. This is kinda summed up in: "the nature of sin is destruction".
Ever worked in a factory and found that people will work with hazardous chemicals they KNOW will eventually make them deathly ill in unsafe conditions? Many many people making little over minimum wage that would string someone up for the mention of reporting to OSHA. Well, there are more people making much better livings off of cancer research and treatment than there are people dying from it. In this case, it's not even their own lives at stake. There exist multiple cures for cancer that you will likely never hear about in mainstream media or from doctors. One of my favorites you can find with google: amygdalin , Laetrile, Vitamin B-17 (not a true vitamin). At no cost other than coming in your food as it's rich in fruit seeds and grains other than wheat. Apricot seeds and bitter almonds (both illegal to sell in US raw) are high in it. People in the medical field I know will tell you that if there is a cure, you'll likely never see it.
RE: Living longer
Tobacco smoking seems to accelerate aging signs such as grey hair, wrinkles, poor physical health. It's impossible to eliminate bad things like Strontium-90 (fall out from the 331 nuclear bomb tests conducted by the US government), pesticides (even used on "organic" food), Frankenfood or (genetically modified foods with un-natural man made amino acids and proteins), mercury and lead (which is mysteriously showing up in water supplies), etc. The food we eat is less nutritious than it used to be thanks to no resting of the land, man made fertilizers, not returning to the land what was taken, processing such as: bleaching/ pasteurizing/ hydrogenating, and storing. Other than eating healthy, and avoiding oxidants is moderate excersize, and lack of stress or worry. This is kinda summed up in: "the nature of sin is destruction".
mephiston5
Senior member
- May 28, 2005
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That is what they told me in my college genetics class. Telomeres are the "useless" ends of the DNA (useless in the fact that they don't seem to be coded for any traits, but they are not so unless since they act as a buffer to the real DNA from taking damage)
Does everyone remember the first sheep they cloned that didn't turn out so well? (Dolly or Molly or something like that) Well when they cloned her they didn't know about the telomeres like they do now. They cloned an old sheep to then make Molly/Dolly, and like it should they old sheep had short Telomeres, and as such so did Dolly/Molly. That was why, even though Dolly/Molly was still young (since the time she had been created) she was really still an old sheep, and not too healthy because of it.
It is my understanding however that they have since found out how to fix that problem and regrow the Telomeres in any samples they wish to clone.
I don't follow what you're saying exactly, but it sounds like you're saying that I'll never get cancer if I let you come in my food? I'm going to have to think about that one...
If they could regrow telomeres in humans, then wouldn't that theoretically be almost like a fountain of youth?
mephiston5
Senior member
- May 28, 2005
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I don't remember exaclty how they regrew the telomeres, but I am pretty sure they can only do it with very small samples in a lab type setting.
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