It’s funny how everyone tends to assume that there is a very obvious and well-known reason why we age, and people are usually shocked to find out that, like the article demonstrates,
science kind of doesn’t really know. We know a lot of the mechanisms of course and I’m sure any doctors here can explain them, but it’s not like there’s one simple and universal explanation.Edit: some commenters have pointed out that aging is very well studied so I’m crossing out the part that could be misleading and will add only: it’s complicated
But we totally do!
There are a handful of mechanisms that break down over time, and they are both well documented and no new one has been found in somewhat the last 45 years!
Some people like to split some of them up in two, but the base SIX reasons we age are as follows:
- Cell loss/tissue atrophy
- Cancerous cells
- Mitochondrial mutations
- Intracellular aggregates
- Extracellular aggregates
- Senescent cells
See for example the book Ending Aging by the worlds most renowned bio gerontologist or the SENS foundation.
Fun fact, active research into how to fix them is ongoing research and seems to advance quite well towards simple and cheap treatments. Not fast enough of course but we might be on the cusp of negligible senescence as they call it…
I think they mean ‘getting old’ rather than ‘aging’. Otherwise the headline makes no fucking sense
