Cancer Journal #60 Nov 22
There is a blog dealing with aging that I used to follow closely. When I got my cancer diagnosis, it became a little bit of a dark joke and my interest flagged. More recently, since I've been doing well, my interest has resumed. It is "Aging Matters" by Josh Mitteldorf (https://joshmitteldorf.scienceblog.com/).
Perhaps a better title for it would be "How not to Age". The standard theory which he believes to be all wrong is that all living things evolve so as to stay alive for as long as they can but that wear and tear with the passage of time inevitably drag those living things down into decline and death. He says that instead, members of a population are genetically programed for the well being of the population, not the individual, and that this requires death for the members that have been around long enough. Without death, overpopulation will create unsustainable demands on food and the other resources necessary for the population's well-being. The population also needs turnover, Hence, the entry of the young and the exit of the old.
He finds the wear and tear hypothesis unpersuasive. Living things are not like an automobile. They have the capacity to just keep renewing into the indefinite future unless there is something to stop that renewal. He points to the huge variability in closely related species. Bats live ten times longer than mice. He attributes this to different genetic longevity setups, not differences in wear and tear.
Mitteldorf maintains that if there is a genetic program for scheduled aging and dying, there should be a way to alter that program. This is the focus for most of the blog. He notes that the savings in health care would be huge if we were not saddled with the age related decline of those who have reached an advanced age. How you deal with a large cohort of vigorous old folks who don't die is something he agrees is a problem but doesn't have much more to say about. Deal with that problem when it comes, I guess.
Aside from an interest in finding the genetic switch that turns on the aging process and then using some biochemical means to prevent the switch from flipping, he takes an interest in environmental factors that can shorten or extend life. Put a living thing in a circumstance that indicates physical hardship and the genetic code will go into life prolonging mode on the theory that the hardy members of the population need to continue living so as to ensure the survival of the population. Thus caloric restriction sends the message that there is a famine. Strong members of the population who are able to survive food scarcity will have the genetic switch for old age decline remain in the off position. Exposure to either extreme heat or extreme cold has the same life extending effect.
There's a term for this. It's called hormesis and it refers to a number of different kinds of stress the body can be put to. Whatever doesn't kill you will make you live longer is the idea. When I was looking into the term on the Internet, I ran across the term "Smoker's Paradox". "Hmmm," I thought and did some more googling. You won't get much. I did read that the concept should be buried. In fact the whole concept of hormesis is out of favor since there's a fear that lobbyists for polluting industries might seize on it to justify continued pollution.
I digress. Before I get back on track though, let me say that I'm sure there is good hormesis like intermittent fasting, infrared sauna and wearing a jacket during the winter that your mother would have thought was inappropriately light. Then there's bad hormesis like emission of toxins into our air and water. You won't catch me promoting bad hormesis!
If you are intrigued by Mitteldorf's theory (or want to slow your own aging process), I'd advise you to scroll through the index and find subjects that interest you. Frankly, the earlier, older entries are the ones I found more accessible. The more recent ones are too technical to get a full grasp of unless you are a biochemist.
There has not been a new entry for a while. Poor man got hit by a car while he was riding his bike and broke many bones in his body. I don't know how he is doing but his silence is ominous. Perhaps a life extending strategy I'd advise would be to confine your biking to bike trails.
The current average lifespan for a male in the U.S. is 76, for a female 81. The Bible says 70 years and by reason of strength 80. Although some go back to genesis and say it is 120 years. Regardless, knowing where we are going after our physical death is the most important thing. :-)
ReplyDeleteIt is true that we hit an age wall generally in our 70-80s or a little beyond. Mitteldorf believes that there may be a biochemical door through that wall. You mention Genesis. The life span of those told of there is way beyond 120 years, of course. Methuselah was 969 years old when he died and he lived among people multiple centuries old. For those who find the Bible an accurate record of our past, this should serve as an expanded view of potential life spans. Staying with this thinking and combining it with Mitteldorf, it suggests that an old age switch was installed perhaps as a long term consequence of being cut off from access to the Tree of Life. Pure speculation, of course.
DeleteAs long as the Book of Genesis is on the table, let me speak of the building of the Tower of Babel. It is a cautionary tale of what happens when men try to make fundamental changes to the world we've been placed in. If you recall, the people built a tower to reach high into the heavens. The reasons are a little obscure but clearly it was to alter whatever God had in store for them. God thwarted those plans, confounded their language and scattered them throughout the world.
This warning against inordinant ambition in reshaping the world should perhaps be applied to biochemical research that seeks to identify the switches that turn on old age. My own curiosity should maybe be dampened. It would be a little like studying and admiring the engineering that went into building that tower. Better to just leave it alone. I don't know. Reading between the lines, that's maybe what you were suggesting.
As to the point that the important question is what happens after death, I quite agree. I have considered writing about the seeming inconsistency in looking to put off what I am really looking forward to. I want to think it through a little more first.