Is there a limit to how old you can be?

[Nisou]

i was wondering.. if there is a limit to how old you could be.. if u altered your genetics.. cant you live forever? cells die after they reproduce.. but why do "people" die, is there suddenly a mechanism that goes "okay, thats enough life for every single cell..., lets all now form a circle and decompose! woot!" .. i know this is another stupid question, but im 15 and curious

[JaKiri]

Life is a general decay; the body doesn't 'turn off' at one point, it slowly disintergrates (otherwise known as 'aging'). There's no reason to not have a countably infinite lifespan, however.

[mossoi]

It does seem that there are mechanisms which "turn off" cell replacement. Research is ongoing but one method of increasing lifespan is to possibly turn off the turn off function.

[5614]

at the moment it is impossible....

in theory it is possible.....

but if it was real, would you want it??? think about it???

and would the people who found it share it with the world?

i mean... there is no price for life [ if you see what i mean]

[Tesseract]

Eh, if you didnt want to live anymore you could just shoot yourself..

[mossoi]

Eh, if you didnt want to live anymore you could just shoot yourself..

Oh man! There's quite a big difference between allowing yourself to die of natural causes when the time comes and blowing your brains out with a gun!

[qazibasit]

well some ppl says that age is a genetic factor and it is a question of gernotology.

[Freeman]

Life is a general decay

Well, not really. The body goes through a state of information in puberty, then -when its old- it begins entropy. The body does decay. The chromosomes, when they reproduce sometimes have snibbets taken away, ussually nothing important, but over time, it takes its toll So, in theory, if you have an original cell from when you were born, you could clone yourself, then implant your brain in that body, but the only problem is that the brain you have is larger than the childs, and you can "trim away" at your brain!!!

[JaKiri]

Obivously that's a simplified example; however, it starts fairly quickly. Is the body as fit at 40 as it is at 30? Or 20?

[Sayonara]

In any case, "You could do X" is not a valid refutation of "the current situation is Y".

[Skye]

Telomeres being eaten up is the same situation as brain cells dying. There's no reason for telomeres to be occasionally shortened, but it happens occasionally by accident. Same as brain cells. Well aside from when the brain cells decide to go get a 6 pack from the store.

 

Woohoo beer!

[mossoi]

Multicellular organisms replace worn-out cells through cell division. However, in some animals, cell division eventually halts, and the cell is then referred to as senescent. Senescent cells deteriorate and die, causing the body to age. Cells stop dividing because the telomeres, protective bits of DNA on the end of a chromosome, become shorter with each division and eventually can no longer protect the chromosome. Cancer cells, on the other hand, are "immortal." An enzyme called telomerase allows them to continue dividing indefinitely.

[YT2095]

I`ve recently heard that it`s been discovered that after a certain age, the actualy aging process stops! (and no I don`t mean at death).

I`m not sure how true it is or how complete this study is either, but it was on the news last week and was only a 5 min peice about it.

[[Tycho?]]

I dont think the actual workings of age are very well understood, plenty of theory, not so much in the more concrete department.

 

I saw an interesting documentry on the subject. I forget most of it, but it seemed to point out that there was a corelation in the aging of cells and cancer. Namely, that aging is a mechanism to prevent cancer, turning off cell division before they become damaged enough to potentially turn cancerous. As well they pointed out that cancers are cells that divide indefinately, and do not age. Interesting show, I wish I remember more of it.

[Aardvark]

I think a fair analogy is that of analogue as opposed to digital.

 

The cells relicate and gradually aquire mistakes and flaws so over time the information degrades, just like in an analogue system, what we need are digital bodies!

[aeroguy]

Programmed death is a consequence of evolution in combination with limited resources.

[admiral_ju00]

It does seem that there are mechanisms which "turn off" cell replacement. Research is ongoing but one method of increasing lifespan is to possibly turn off the turn off function.

 

There are numerous candidates that are being. In most cases, the work that's been done with rodents, monkeys and other animals(short lived ones like spiders, flies, etc) have dramatically prolonged their life. In humans, many of these are either unethical or undoable. But some of the many things involved(or at least currently investigated are) Genetics, Cell replication, Diet, Sexual reproduction, Hormones, Oxidation or Free Radical damage (if you prefer), etc.

 

Reason why I quoted your post is this, some research has shown that a cell, in a lab conditions will divide about 50 times and then no more. The reason is that evidently each time the cell divides, the chromosomal telomers get shorter with each division, 'till it comes to a certain crucial point and the cell will no longer divide(Asexual reproduction).

 

1)at the moment it is impossible....

2)in theory it is possible.....

3)but if it was real' date=' would you want it??? think about it???

4)and would the people who found it share it with the world?

[/quote']

 

1) Not really, as for example they've been able to keep house flies alive and well(and younger) to about 50-60 days.

2) If the tests on animals and primates are legit, then they are already doing it with the lab animals.

3) ......

4) Since this research is done by scientists(not some corporation with profits-only in mind), they would have too.

 

well some ppl says that age is a genetic factor and it is a question of gernotology.

It can it' date=' but it would only be [b']Partially[/b] responsible.

 

I`ve recently heard that it`s been discovered that after a certain age' date=' the actualy aging process stops! (and no I don`t mean at death).

I`m not sure how true it is or how complete this study is either, but it was on the news last week and was only a 5 min peice about it.[/quote']

 

From what I found, that's partially correct. These people are referred to as the Oldest-Old or Centenarians - meaning that people who live to 90-100+ years are relatively troublefree of health/psyche problems. That is because the others were dealt with, by Natural Selection. The French woman who lived to 122 years of age, didn't have major problems like dementia, the man who has recently(a few years ago or something) won a medal at senior Olympics at age 90 or 95(can't remember his name, but I'm fairly sure that this article should be on cnn.), but obviously he can outperform many seniors aged 65-85 or so.

 

Programmed death is a consequence of evolution in combination with limited resources.

Taking a completely evolutionary view of this, you can say the following: Once an organism has acquired a fitness(even say of 1), then that organisms evolutionary task is complete and there is no really any more reason to keep this organism alive much longer.Right?

For instance, while women outlive men, you could say that women are no longer needed past the age of 40. Several things for this view:

1) 40's bring the menopause

2) After the age of 35, each time a woman gets pregnant she has higher chances of producing some kind of mutation that would affect the child. Ex: Down Syndrome, etc.

3) Even if having an in vitro fertilization, she may not carry the fetus to full term and or develop other complications.

 

What this all means is that women are useful in terms of evolution while they have very high chances of producing of an equally viable offspring. You could limit the age of this group from 12 - 34/35.

 

Men on the other can and do produce sperm well off into their sixties and can still impregnate someone with much less chances of producing any or very few undesirable traits.

[aeroguy]

An American man held a pilot's licence and flew until he was 102 years old.

He died recently, aged 104!

[Aardvark]

What this all means is that women are useful in terms of evolution while they have very high chances of producing of an equally viable offspring. You could limit the age of this group from 12 - 34/35.

 

Men on the other can and do produce sperm well off into their sixties and can still impregnate someone with much less chances of producing any or very few undesirable traits.

 

 

Other factors to consider are that women are also important in the years after childbirth, raising and caring for the young, so it makes sense for evolution to allocate resources (clumsy phrase, sorry) to allow women to live longer.

 

On the other hand, throughout most of the human past, men had a high chance of dying young through fights, hunting accidents and the strains of a high impact, dangerous outdoor existence. As such the chance of impregnating a women when old would not be sufficent for evolution to allocate the resources for greater longevity, why bother when the man is likely to be killed young anyway?

 

Therefore, it makes evolutionairy sense for women to have greater longevity than men.

[admiral_ju00]

There is also some data that suggest that women that are actively involved in caring for their young, live a bit longer than those who don't. The last time I checked on this, wasn't definitive, so the researchers are not entirely certain if caring for the child increases life span, or if it's genetic.

[Aardvark]

Interesting, correlation or causation?

 

I'd like to know a bit about that data, any links?

[admiral_ju00]

Interesting' date=' correlation or causation?

 

I'd like to know a bit about that data, any links?[/quote']

 

Here's some info on this.

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/1998/10.01/WhyWomenLiveLon.html

 

There are more, as the research I mentioned last time was done by a different Uni in Cali. I'll post that link as soon as I think/remember the Authors names.

 

Here's a nice collection of sites and research groups on this:

http://members.aol.com/johnfurber/aging.html

 

Whew, found it. Damnit, I was starting to go ape-sh1t over here

 

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=22663

That research was very briefly mentioned a year back in one of anthro classes, glad I wrote down their names ;D