How New Theories Will Change the Future of Medicine Third Edition

Why do we age? This question has baffled scientists for 150 years and remains unresolved. Scientists disagree over even the general nature of aging. Is aging the result of fundamental limitations that apply to all living things, do we age because our bodies do not try harder not to age, or are organisms designed by nature or " programmed " to age because a limited life span conveys some evolutionary advantage? All of the scientific theories either fail to fully explain observed animal characteristics or conflict with widely accepted evolutionary mechanics theory. This issue has potentially enormous implications for medicine. If aging is the result of fundamental and unalterable forces of nature, then anti-aging medicine is impossible and anti-aging research is futile and foolish. If aging is dictated by a species-specific design, then research may well reveal means for altering the operation of the aging mechanism and thereby improve the treatment of many age-related diseases and conditions. This book provides a review of theories of biological aging including underlying evolution and genetics issues and describes recent discoveries and theories that overwhelmingly favor programmed aging and therefore suggest that increased research on aging mechanisms would be highly beneficial to public health. Acknowledgements The author wishes to thank the many people who helped with this book or provided helpful comments and suggestions regarding the underlying material including Joshua Mitteldorf The Commission for Publication of Biological Monographs (MAIK Nauka-Interperiodika Publishers-Russian Academy of Sciences) has selected an earlier version of this document for publication in Russian. Although translation has been completed, actual publication was cancelled because of budgetary constraints. We are attempting to obtain permission for Internet distribution of the Russian document: Теодор Голдсмит Эволюция старения Science Abstract: In 1882 Weismann formally proposed that programmed aging was an evolved characteristic, an adaptation of organism design, which had an evolutionary purpose. Darwin had previously suggested that aging was an evolved characteristic despite conflicts with Darwinian evolutionary mechanics. Many current theorists have discarded adaptive theories of aging using one or more of the following arguments: Some theorists consider it " impossible " that aging could be an adaptation because adaptive theory conflicts with their theory of natural selection. Others rejected adaptive theories because no propagation mechanism had been demonstrated that would provide for the evolution of a fitness-adverse trait such as aging. Finally, some doubt that aging has evolutionary utility. This book, written for a wide …