We All Age in the Same Way, but with a Distribution of Outcomes

Today's research materials are representative of numerous initiatives aiming to produce taxonomies of the biochemistry of aging, to catalog the observed variations. Yet, with the exception of a very small number of unlucky souls bearing rare harmful mutations, we all age for the same underlying reasons. The same processes of metabolism produce the same forms of cell and tissue damage, leading to the same downstream dysfunctions and the same ultimately fatal age-related conditions. Yes, there is some variation in outcome. For all that aging is a universally similar process of multiple interacting forms of damage, some portions of its consequences progress modestly more rapidly or modestly more slowly from individual to individual, a distribution of outcomes that largely results from lifestyle choices and random happenstance, rather than from genetic variation. Thus many researchers are interested in this distribution, perhaps more so than in doing something about the challenge of aging, the death and suffering it causes. Given this view of the situation, I would say that somewhat more scientific effort goes into cataloging the differences between individuals than is merited. Examining long-lived people, with the goal of producing interventions that might make more people live incrementally longer in good health, is a terrible strategy, when compared with the alternative of directly addressing the common causes of aging, which might make everyone live considerably longer...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs