Eli5 how does natural death work? Why do we age at all?

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Eli5 how does natural death work? Why do we age at all?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

There is a simple way to understand this.DNA helps to control growth.When u r young it does it’s job well and the number of cells created outnumber the number of cells dieing in ur body.As u grow older it wears a little out and now the number of cells created are somewhat little more than number of cells dieing in ur body.When you grow older, the number of cells created are lower to number of cells dieing.This eventually leads to death over time.

Anonymous 0 Comments

It’s thought that aging is the result of telomeres getting shorter each time a cell replicates. Telomeres protect the end sequence of DNA from getting tangled or frayed. Once they get too short, the cell can’t replicate correctly and dies.

There’s no such thing as “natural death” or dying of old age. What that usually means is someone was too old and their body was too weak to fight off some illness or infection.

Anonymous 0 Comments

This is _very_ simplified, but basically our body is constantly repairing itself using DNA as the instruction set, but out DNA deteriorates with time. Every time a cell replicates, DNA has a chance of getting corrupted, and there’s evidence to suggest that cells can only reproduce a certain number of times regardless.

And when DNA gets corrupted, there’s a chance it turns into cancer. Which, frankly speaking, is what most “natural causes” death ends up being.

Anonymous 0 Comments

The tips of a stand of DNA have things called a Telomere. You can think of it like a plastic cap on the tips of a shoe string. These get worn out and eventually your DNA gets damaged and thus your cells cannot do their job.

Telomeres are shortened or damaged by lots of factors: diet, stress, smoking, obesity and of course, age.

Everytime your cells need to copy themselves, these Telomeres get shorter, this act is literally what causes aging.