Why You Grow Old and the Science of Longevity
We all know what a child or children are, we know and understand infants, but we are looking at being a youth, and are looking for ways to make our youthful days longer. Scientists are looking to make our youthful age last as long as 100 years. In other to do that, we need to get to solve the problem of aging and work on longevity. Without any further ado, let's discuss aging in a very interactive way, understanding what can be done to overcome aging if it is ever possible.
Some scientists refer to aging as a disease. It is regarded as the mother of all diseases as it allows the immune system to become weaker and people are able to fall sick easily. The world health organization also sees this light and agrees that aging is a result of molecular and cellular damage that leads to other health conditions. While the WHO refers to it as a condition, I doubt if any elderly or aged person would like to hear that their current condition is regarded as a disease, but one thing that everyone agrees with, including my grandma is that biological aging is the precursor of most diseases and since it is a natural process, it is next to difficult, to tell them that what they are having is a disease. Although you cannot exactly tell a person that their aging is a type of disease, scientists are working on slowing down, and compressing its related diseases, even when we haven't conquered the disease itself. So people can live without being sick until they die of old age.
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Currently, aging is a normal process that would lead to the inability of a person to fix things, correct things, and so on. While it isn't treatable for now, it is modifiable. While there are people who are aged 100 and above, some people do not even live up to the age of 60. This doesn't mean that they do not fall sick, research has shown that people who live long have the longevity gene like the Forkhead box protein O3 (FOXO3) gene and these genes can slow down the aging process, thereby preventing them from exhibiting a lot of aging-related diseases.
Also, there is a point to aging with respect to telomeres and mitochondria. Telomeres are non-coding structures in the genome of every cell that protect the chromosomes and when they get too short, the cell goes into self-cycle arrest and dies. People with short telomeres are likely to develop diseases in their life and die early, as they prevent the cells from continuous division, and according to research, people who live longer, up to 100 years are said to have longer telomeres compared to people who are younger than them and already suffering from age-related diseases, while too long telomeres can lead to cancer. Also, scientists do not believe that telomeres have the same effect on humans as it does on animals. For instance, in mice, the telomeres are long but they die within 3 years while humans age for a longer period.
Cellular Senescence which is a response to individual cell to stress. Where the cell stops to reproduce as a result of stress from either DNA damage, mitochondria stress and so on. It would activiate a signalling pathway where the cell will not produce a daughter cell and this process is used to supress tumor from the damage cells. When the cells that are stressed sends this signals, which allows immune cells to destroy these cells but as we become older, there are more stressed cells creating more senescent cells, and the immune cells decay as we get weaker, making us to have more senescent cells in the body which then leads to chronic inflammation which makes us become vulnerable to different diseases which are the diseases of old age. If you remember during the Covid-19 Pandemic, health officials advised that the old and elderly should not be allowed to come in contact with other people because their immune system are low, and they have more senescent cells in their body thereby making them susceptible.
Another study shows that the Epigenetic information of the epigenome which is lost during aging and the sirtuins start to read the wrong the wrong genes in the geneome. The research shows that the changes related to old age is as a result of changes in the epigenome. Some scientist say that if the genes in the epigenome can be repaired then longevity and old age can be repaired. Other researches shows that there are different hallmark associated with aging inludes aging genomic instability, DNA mutations, loss of protein homeostasis, deregulated nutrient sensing, and mitochondrial dysfunction.
Getting rid of senescent cells will lead to less age-related diseases, and from the mice experiement, it shows that median lifespan can be increased as there are less age-related diseases. Since Senescent cells are responsible for aging, there are researches done on drugs known as Senotherapeutics which are senolytics that kills specific targeted senescent cells in the body. Other drugs are Senomorphics which alters the senescent cell phenotype which prevents the inflamation in the cell.
Rounding Up
Old age is something some people see as a blessing, but it comes with a lot of diseases and although we cannot call old age a disease it can be reffered to as a condition. With continuous researches over time, we would be able to increase the longevity of life, as well as improve old age without age-related illness. Also, there is a possibility that resveratol, NAD Booster, and fesetin can inprove the way of live and increase longevity.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4471741/
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/ageing-and-health
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8836117/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6386227/
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12664-x
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4214092/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3689181/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5748990/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5514220/
there are many discussions in this regard. Some say it is a disease, others that it is just part of one's life, that there is nothing that can live indefinitely.
But it is very true that, most of the time, when we get older, diseases will appear, even if the person has had a very careful life, there will always be some kind of deficit in our body that will limit us, unfortunately. Starting with the fact that we will lose strength, endurance, our immune system is not the same, in short, death is something very certain for everyone.
Old age and longevity are one discussion that has different beliefs and thoughts. It is no doubt it tags along with different diseases, but it is hard to summarize as a disease. How do you tell the old person who has waited all their life to grow old that old age is a disease? Over the years, progress has been made with respect to old age and maybe in 2 decades from now, there can be a reasonable breakthrough that people can resonate with. On the aspect of death, it is impressive how much is being investeded into researches that deal with Downloading Consciousness and how to beat death at its own game.
Longevity is something for which man has been making a competition, a constant search, it seems unbelievable, but after so many years in that, he has not been able to, and I do not know if it is possible to achieve eternal life.
hello my friend it is nice to know a little more about our grown as a humans, thanks 4 bringing this such information, greetings
Thanks a lot for spending part of your time reading it. Your time is a lot of investment here and it is appreciated.