What Is Aging?

As good a definition as any in this paper: "Aging at the molecular level is characterized by the progressive accumulation of molecular damage. The sources of damage act randomly through environmental and metabolically generated free radicals, through spontaneous errors in biochemical reactions, and through nutritional components. However, the occurrence of damage on a macromolecule may depend on its structure, localisation and interactions with other macromolecules. Damages in the maintenance and repair pathways comprising homeodynamic machinery lead to age-related failure of homeodynamics, increased molecular heterogeneity, altered cellular functioning, reduced stress tolerance, diseases and ultimate death." This means that any therapy capable of effectively intervening in aging must "incorporate means to minimize the occurrence and accumulation of molecular damage." At the high level, the most important debate in biogerontology today is over whether to work to slow the damage or repair the damage. I favor the latter course.

Link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18208348

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