On a cellular level, what is the exact process?
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Biologist here 🙂
Without going into too much jargony detail: The way DNA replicates whenever a cell divides, a few nucleotides (the A,C,T,Gs that make up DNA) are lost from the end of the DNA strand. The mechanism of DNA replication has no way to copy the ones at the very end on one side.
So to help prevent losing important DNA, we have “telomeres” which are just long segments of DNA that aren’t important for your body, they just exist to slowly get corroded away without harm to the more vital DNA. Eventually those telomeres get very short and you start losing the important DNA too.
Beyond just the telomeres, every time your DNA is replicated there are errors. Most of those errors are caught quickly and repaired, or don’t cause any harm. But eventually over the course of your lifespan, harmful mutations do start accumulating which can cause cancer but also more subtle damage to cells, reducing their function.
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