Delaying the Degenerative Disease of Aging
Another Aging 2008 presentation from the "work to slow aging rather than repair it" contingent: "All of life is trade-offs [and] that is an inevitable byproduct of living. Nature is better than most engineers - it is 98 or 99% efficient, but as you get older the mitochondria are putting out more oxidants. It is like an old car engine that has less efficiency and more black smoke. ... The argument is that throughout all of evolution, animals were running out of one micronutrient or another ... Animals are running out of magnesium or iron. What does nature want to do when you are running out of magnesium? It cuts out any metabolism that is long-term. DNA damage shows up as cancer five years down the road? The hell with it. Your adaptive immunity leads to dying of a more severe infection five years down the road? The hell with it. ... Basically you are paring down to what is vital so you can reproduce a little bit. That's what nature cares about. That is the argument: I call it triage [and] we are in the middle of trying to test it in people. The pathology is all insidious - it is the very things that happen with aging. DNA damage goes up with aging, your adaptive immunity goes out with aging, your mitochondria put out more oxygen radicals with aging, and that is what is accelerated by micronutrient deficiency."