Why do we age and how do biologically immortal organisms combat the aging process?
In: Biology
This is a complex question and I’m far from being an expert on the topic, but:
There’s several mechanism of aging. Our cells first of all cannot replicate forever, the ends of DNA have something called telomere, that shortens every time the cells divide. Once they are too short the cell is set to die. (Except for cancer cells. Cancer cells are basically immortal. If you provide for them, they can survive for a very long time, check out the HeLa cells.) Second, all our life, we are experiencing a lot of stress, like UV lights from the sun, or chemicals that harm the DNA, but such agents are also created inside the body, as a part of normal functioning. Harming the DNA can result in the death of the cell or it not dividing anymore, or losing its function. Proteins can also be impacted, and “abnormal” proteins can aggregate in cells, killing them, or imparing their function. Also, as another commenter mentioned, reducing calorie intake can expand the lifespan of several animals, including humans, but I unfortunately don’t understand the mechanism well enough to simply explain it. There’s also a number of other reasons for aging, like mitochondria creating reactive molecules, stem cells depleting and so on.
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