Why could the body not keep making healthy, young cells forever?
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It’s a mechanism we developed through evolution. Through the process of evolution advantageous traits are strengthened and/or multiplied generation by generation, meaning every generation is more fit to survive in its environment than the last. This is especially important when our environment changes, because while old generations might have been great at living in the old environment, they might no longer be optimized for the new one.
By killing off the previous generation through the process of ageing, new resources become available for the next generation and the process of evolution can continue. If people lived forever, procreation could come to a halt, because the world can no longer support more people. With that, evolution would come to a halt too and we would be stuck at an old version of ourselves and be unfit to deal with a new situation.
In a broad sense of the term we are still undergoing evolution. Social evolution in our case. The mindset of the people also evolves. Just think about how helpless many old people are with electronic devices. Many also fall for scams that most young people would instantly look through. Meanwhile a lot of young people wouldn’t be able to handle problems that were completely normal for the previous generation.
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