Author : Dr. P. D.GUPTA
Former Director Grade Scientist, Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad, India
www.daylife.page
The Minute you are born you are old, one minute one hour, one day and so and so forth. This is your Chronological age, it runs with clock which in turns on earth’s movements you and me cannot change it. But there is another age which we can control and that is physiological age. In this everyone ages at a different rate. Some people seem to age very fast (premature aging), while others experience aging at a much more gradual pace. We’ve all experienced meeting someone for the first time that appears to be much younger—or older—than they really are. This depends on many lifestyle factors such as diet, exercise and sleeping habits, to name a few.
Now the question comes, when did humans start to get old? It is not simple to answer. Different speciality people answer it differently. Geneticist say depends on telomere length, and DNA methylation(Chemical change DNA). Scientists have discovered that the higher a person’s chronological age, the shorter their telomeres (the extreme ends of the chromosomes). DNA methylation is also used to determine biological age. One study sought to discover whether DNA methylation is an accurate way of predicting age by gathering 8,000 samples of 51difference tissues and cells. Most of the tissue and cell samples studied had the same chronological and biological ages. Some didn’t. The study found that certain parts of the body age faster than others. For example, breast tissue is some of the oldest tissues in the body. The research found that even healthy breast tissue can be as much as three years older than the rest of a woman’s body.
There are several distinct explanations to answer the question “when we become old”. In earlier article (Born to die: why do we age?) I argued any life which has come on this earth has to perish. Humans are givenmaximum120 years according to the book of Genesis. Very rarely people reach at this. The longest human life on record is 122 years and 164 days made by a French woman, Jeanne Louise Calment, before her death in 1997.We cannot continue with this old age forever.
According to:
Programmed theories – aging is a natural process, just like any normal process which has to end. It includes, Programmed aging, Endocrine and Immunological Aging.
Error theories - aging is not something which is programmed to occur, but rather aging is due to a series of “accidents.” This includes: wear and tear of the body parts, rate limiting reaction, free radical damage, protein cross linking and somatic DNA damage. The different points of view in these theories never merge, and go far beyond biology and become a philosophical discussion. Why we not adopt a simple explanation:” When we stop growing, we start aging... (The author has his own study and views)
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