Death finds even those who hide from Life.
V. Bruskov
Genetic approach to the problem of human aging
The scientific world has long been interested in the question: are there genes for old age and death? We can say in another way: "Is there a kind of" time bomb "in a living organism, which at a certain time turns on the self-destruction mechanism?"
In our time in the scientific literature, there are two hypotheses regarding this problem. According to one point of view, human aging is a manifestation of a genetically programmed active function of self-destruction of the body. Its adherents assure that there are special "aging genes" that are turned on in the body at a certain point in life, reduce the viability of old individuals and lead to their death.
According to another hypothesis, the limited life span of an organism is associated with the limited reliability of life support systems and is of the same nature as the limited service life of technical devices.
It should be noted that most of the facts and logical arguments rather confirm the second hypothesis, which means that by increasing the reliability of the work of the main systems of our body, we can significantly extend our life.
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In other words, a person dies not because the biological clockwork of "suicide" is triggered inside him, but because his body simply was not designed for such a long period of existence. For example, in our body there are a large number of so-called "macromolecules" - giant biological molecules that play an important role in life processes. These are DNA, some types of RNA, intracellular proteins, collagen and elastin. These molecules are subject to spontaneous destruction, similar to the aging of metal in cars or airplanes.
Note that human aging takes place at many levels - not only at the molecular level, but also at the systemic level. A man - unlike an animal - is not just a collection of biological macromolecules, but also a bearer of a complex psyche, which has a huge impact on the body. Therefore, it would be wrong to reduce the entire variety of aging processes solely to changes in macromolecules.
The psychological causes of aging are equally important. Recently, scientists have been able to find out why some people age faster than others. As it turned out, nothing ages the body more than constant stress, which causes irreversible changes at the cellular level. In particular, stress is detrimental to the female body - women who are often worried live 9-17 years less than the calm representatives of the fair sex.
Nothing brings a person closer to death as longevity.
Don Aminado
Physiological approach to the problem of human aging
The human body is a complex cybernetic system that consists of trillions of living cells. This system is able to work for a long time and properly only if the control center - the nervous system - works without errors. In particular, the work of its vegetative department plays an important role in maintaining a healthy and long life. The nervous system itself consists of several billion nerve cells - neurons. Like other human cells, over time, neurons fail one after another. They are killed by microbes, poisons (including alcohol and nicotine), lack of oxygen and nutrients, and autoimmune processes.
But, if in the intestine instead of a dead cell a new one is formed after 3-4 days, neurons after birth are no longer able to multiply, therefore their number decreases with age. Accordingly, over the years, the number of working elements in the brain decreases and it becomes more and more difficult for it to provide control of the functions of organs and their systems. As neurons die, failures and errors in the work of the human body increase, which over time lead to serious dysregulation and death.
For example, if two people of different ages (young and old) have pronounced psychological stress in connection with any similar events in their personal lives, then the elderly person, firstly, will have a higher blood pressure, and, secondly, less anti-stress hormones of the adrenal glands will be released into the blood. As a result, the old person's brain will experience an increased stress compared to the young person's. Taking into account the reduced safety margin of "old" neurons, this stress will lead to their massive failure, which will further reduce the ability of the brain to resolve extreme situations, etc.
But not everything is as hopeless as it might seem at first glance. The human brain is built with a large safety margin. The neural network in the human brain is very plastic and capable of rebuilding its work when individual cells are damaged. In this case, the cells that remain intact take over the function of the dead neurons. Thus, even in very old people who have lost up to 20–30% of cells, the central nervous system is able to quite successfully control the functions of the body, maintaining all life support systems at a sufficient level.
True, for this it is necessary to follow certain recommendations:
1. It is necessary to protect nerve cells, protecting them from the effects of damaging factors: large doses of alcohol and other toxic substances, drops in blood pressure, infectious diseases, nervous stress, etc.
2. It is necessary to train and improve the regulatory functions of the nervous system by training the physical and mental capabilities of the body. Such training should take place in two directions.
Physical training:
- Coordination training (performing balance exercises, engaging in various sports that require dexterity of movements, dancing);
- Training of the thermoregulation system (hardening of the body - contrast shower, winter swimming);
- Development of reserve capabilities of the body (exercises for holding the breath, aerobic exercise - jogging, long walking).
Mental capacity training:
- Development of memory (learning foreign languages, solving crosswords);
- Training of attention functions (concentration exercises);
- Exercises aimed at developing logic (solving intellectual problems).
Humoral regulation of the body's vital activity is provided by the endocrine glands (endocrine glands). They produce biologically active substances that adapt the human body to various external and internal changes. For example, the adrenal bundle zone produces glucocorticoids that help us cope with stress. The founder of the concept of stress, Nobel laureate Hans Selye, proved that the absence of these hormones can significantly shorten the life of the body, especially if there is a lot of stress in life.
To understand the influence of the humoral system on the aging process of the body, let us consider a unique creation of nature - the queen bee. The life span of worker bees and drones is from 4 to 5 months, and the queen lives - about 8 years (20 times longer!). Moreover, the queen is not from birth a kind of superperfect individual - according to its genetic makeup, it is an ordinary bee, which was only lucky enough to be born in a larger cell. As soon as she was in the "royal" chambers, she was transferred to a special diet - and that's it! The phenomenal (for a bee) lifespan, large size and more perfect appearance are the result of special nutrition.
For the first three days, all larvae in the hive receive the same food. After that, the larvae, which should become queens, are fed separately. After a while, they feed only on royal jelly. It is this food that contributes to the transformation of an ordinary larva into a queen bee that has lived for so long. It is as if a person receiving an increased dose of hormones lived not 70 years, but 70 x 20 = 1400 years!
However, what is real for bees is still absolutely not acceptable to humans, although the role of hormones in the formation and aging of the human body cannot be denied. For example, if a person produces a lot of thyroxine, the thyroid hormone, then his body "burns out" much faster in the flame of life. Aging leads to a decrease in the production of sex hormones, and on the contrary, the normal level of activity of the sex glands slows down aging.
Chemical and engineering approaches to the problem of human aging
The chemical approach to the problem of why a person is aging is that biological molecules become unusable with age. And from molecules, as we know, cells are composed, from cells - tissues, from tissues - organs, and from organs - the human body. So it turns out that everything starts with small molecules, and ends with aging and death of the whole person.
"Chemical" hypotheses explain the phenomenon of why a person ages in two ways: the damaging effect of free radicals and the gradual destruction of biological macromolecules. Free radicals are aggressive debris of certain molecules that can destroy important biomolecules by chemically reacting with them. Free radicals contain unpaired electrons that enter into "unplanned" chemical reactions with enzymes, nucleic acids and other elements of human cells, turning the latter into "monsters" who have forgotten their natural purpose.
The destruction of normal molecules and their transformation into free radicals can occur under the influence of strong chemical oxidants (chlorine, oxygen), ionizing radiation, hard ultraviolet radiation and other high-energy agents. Accordingly, to slow down the onset of old age, it is necessary, on the one hand, to avoid harmful environmental factors leading to the formation of free radicals, and, secondly, to use means that neutralize these harmful molecules.
Nowadays, they use "soft" antioxidants that reduce the amount of free radicals in the human body, to some extent slowing down the onset of old age. These antioxidants include vitamins E, C, P, A, K and the chemical element selenium. Apples, cherries, dark cherries, rose hips, nuts, black chokeberry, green tea and black currants are also rich in various antioxidants. Vegetables rich in antioxidants include beets, cabbage, garlic, onions, and fresh herbs. All of these fruits and vegetables help reduce harmful free radicals and thus help prevent aging and increase longevity.
From a technical point of view, the death of an airliner or the destruction of a car begins with little: rust, a bursting bolt, metal fatigue and other similarly minor damage, followed by major troubles. If we transfer this analogy to living organisms, then we can say that old age appears due to the accumulation of a large number of small and large breakdowns and failures in a normal organism. As a result, deterioration of the body and aging of biological macromolecules leads to death. From this point of view, old age is the transition of quantitative pathological changes characteristic of life into a new quality - death.
One cholesterol plaque on the coronary artery does not mean anything yet, but when there are enough of them, the blood will no longer be able to deliver oxygen to the heart cells and coronary heart disease or myocardial infarction develops. If out of a billion nerve cells 100 or 200 die, the brain will not even notice this, but when the number of defective cells exceeds a certain percentage, insanity and personality degradation sets in. If one mutant gene appears in human DNA, then it can be easily corrected by the repair system (automatic genetic repair), but if mutations occur simultaneously in two DNA strands, they can no longer be repaired.
A striking representative of the technical approach is Aubrey de Gray, a man who claims that in 30 years people will be able to live for 150 years, and after 100 years, science will be able to extend a person's life up to 1000 years or more, making people practically immortal. This "nutty professor", as journalists sometimes call him, wears jeans, has grown a long beard and loves to drink beer - in general, he looks more like a rocker than an academic scientist.
Nevertheless, he created a large-scale international anti-aging project "Strategies for Engineered Senescence (SENS)", or "Strategy for aging management by engineering methods." Aubrey de Gray believes that there are only 7 main causes of aging, and if you find a way to neutralize these causes, a person can live almost forever.
For example, the first reason is the accumulation of "intracellular waste" - metabolic products inside cells - harmful chemicals that disrupt their work. The solution to this problem will be the introduction of additional natural enzymes into the cells that are capable of breaking it down - some of them have already been found.
The second reason for human aging is the accumulation of "intercellular debris" - metabolic products in the extracellular space, for example, atherosclerotic plaques. To solve this problem, de Gray recommends the use of vaccines that stimulate the immune system, or peptide proteins that can destroy this "garbage".
The third reason for a person's old age is the accumulation of unnecessary cells, for example, fat cells (they increase weight and slow down metabolism), aging or damaged (they are toxic to the body and lower its immunity). To neutralize this cause of aging, de Gray proposes the creation of drugs that instruct unnecessary cells to order a special form of cellular suicide - apoptosis.
We could name the other four causes of aging and ways to neutralize them, but we will not do this. It is more important for us that, from the point of view of engineering genetics, old age is the accumulation of minor failures and breakdowns that were not detected and corrected in time by the body's restorative systems. It is clear that major "breakdowns" - injuries and serious illnesses - further disrupt the normal state of the body and further accelerate the onset of old age.
However, even here biology technicians underestimate the role of psychology. There is a sufficient number of facts that prove that if a person has a strong will, optimism and deeply and sincerely believes in his recovery, then he will emerge victorious from the battle with any disease and live longer than many “healthy” people who have not been ill and have lived measured and calm life.
Man, unlike any of the most complex technical system, is a self-improving and self-developing being. With properly organized training, its abilities can increase many times, and at the same time, its reliability in relation to damaging environmental factors can also increase. A person is able to lie on broken glass, walk on hot coals, drink hydrochloric acid, pierce himself with steel needles and swim in an ice hole - and become even healthier from this. It's all about the psychological mood and gradual training.
Yu Shcherbatykh