Secret of Aging

Why we age?
Imagine that your grandmother
looks like a teenager, plays
soccer, parties at the clubs all
night, and works as a venture
capitalist. Or imagine your
grandfather teaching you the
latest high-tech computer
software in his office, which
you hate to visit because of the
loud heavy metal music. Such
a scenario is hard to envision
because we are taught to
accept aging and the resulting
suffering and death as an
immutable fact of life. We
cannot picture our
grandparents in better physical
shape than we are.

You might be wondering

why we age in the first place? Or what is it about our cells or bodies that causes us to
grow old? Agin is the outcome of different processes occurred in our body which is
accompanied by decrease in normal physiological function.
Aging is a multifactorial process that was determined by different factors like lifestyle
and environmental stress, but the surprising truth is that aside from these we actually
have a biological clock buried within our genes.
Biological clock can only run for so long, in other words we are programmed to
die. No organisms live forever. The length of time animals and human live is influenced
by their genes.
Your body is made up of trillion of cells which are constantly going through cell
division and everytime they divide they make a copy of DNA as well. This DNA is tightly
packed into structures called chromosomes but the problem is that DNA replication is
not perfect and skips over the end of each chromosome. To protect DNA information
from being cut out we have telomeres on the end of each chromosomes. Everytime our
cell divides these telomeres become shorter and shorter until the DNA stops replicating
and theses telomeres were all stripped away.
DNA replication has a limit. This replication limit actually helps prevent growth of
cancer cells and evasion of cell death. The point at which cell stops replicating is known
as cellular senescence. In humans this replication limit is around fifty times. Once it is
reached, the cells gradually lose it function and die causing age-related characteristics.
 Scientists wondered why some people live longer than others. In a study
conducted with 800 centenarians, they’ve found out that 2 or 3 genetic differences were
present that set them apart from people with normal lifespans. It shows that some
genes enable people to live longer.

World Without Aging

Suppose that we eliminate a majority of age-related diseases, such as cancer
and heart disease, and can maintain the vitality of the body. Under these
circumstances, everyone can expect an average lifespan of more than 1,000 years and
a virtually unlimited maximum lifespan. Estimating a future average lifespan of 1,000
years is based on removing age-related mortality from current statistics: accidents and
other causes of death still remain, of course. Aubrey de Grey believes that human life
expectancy at birth in 2100 will be 5,000 years, however. He takes into consideration
not only anti-aging discoveries but also chnges in technology and attitudes as people
strive to reduce or avoid risk and make dangerous activities safer. 
Our first instinct when we consider a world without aging might be a concern
about overpopulation. Yet we cannot see breakthroughs in aging research as isolated
events. Technology evolves; civilization evolves. For example, worldwide agricultural
output has more than doubled in the past 50 years. In fact, future problems resulting
from overpopulation have been widely touted for decades, most famously in the 1970s
("Mathusianism"). These warnings have always proven wrong, as the proponents did
not account for advances in food, energy, transport and renewable technology. Of
course overpopulation in some regions, such as the southeast Asia, might be
aggravated by life extension technology. Even so, letting people suffer and die of aging
or disease to control overpopulation is repugnant and ethically unacceptable, so other
solutions must be sought--and humans have a History of finding solutions.
Delayed aging will lead to huge social changes, and perhaps even to some
bizarre possibilities: your children dating your grandparents' friends, for example, or
your children looking younger than your great-grandchildren. Age stratification in the
population will change or disappear, and with it, many of our preconceived ideas. But
civilization continually evolves to encompass new ideas and new possibilities. Most
important of all, in defeating aging we will have eliminated one of the greatest causes of
suffering, pain and death. 
Elderly people in an aging-free tomorrow will be extremely productive, changing
careers from time to time throughout their lives. They will have the experiences of a
lifetime--or two lifetimes, or three, or twenty--combined with a young physique. The
burden of age-related diseases on health care will disappear. That is why the
grandparents of tomorrow will live longer and happier lives. You and I are the
grandparents of tomorrow. With hard work, scientific research, anti-aging advocacy and
a bit of luck, we may be around for centuries to come.