What do you think is the cause for aging?
I've studied a bunch but none of them yet takes the cake on the depth needed to cure aging. I think these categories explain aging in general, but what we need to work on now is the therapeutic part of aging.
- Telomere Theory
- Rate of Living Theory
- Hormone Disregulation Theory
- Free-Radical Theory
- DNA Mis-Repair Theory
- Programmed Aging
- Extra-cellular Junk
- Non-replaced Aged Cells in G0 Phase
- Error-Catastrophe Theory
- Wear and Tear Theory
These are just a few I can remember off the top of my head

Feel free to add your interpretation of these theories, create new hypotheses, and any other interesting new research done on aging.

I'm pretty sure time causes aging.

Yes agreed time should be there ie wear & tear lol!

True. Time is big. Though time is pretty general.

Humans can live till about 100, Sturgeon fish for about 300, A fly for a few days or weeks, and trees for thousands of years.

There has to be something more to aging that is manipulable.

Your diet and living simply I am adding here. The earth is aging also. We dont get the vitamins and minerals our body needs from the overused, depleted soil our fruit and vegetables grow in. Chemical sprays, chemicals added to meat just poisons us.

Telomere shortening is the correct answer.

Agree...The "rate" of aging is what is unique to each individual and understanding that lifestyle choices do in fact speed up or slow down the rate of cell division is the key to living a longer, healthier life...Even this process is unique to each individual and can only be influenced up to a certain point....

Cell division = aging......

Cells are known to divide about 50 times before they die...Each time a cell divides the telomeres, or the ends of cells that do not contain DNA, become shorter.....Soooo when the telomere become too short to accomodate cell division, ta normal cell dies off.....

The problem is that our bodies completely replace every atom every few years. So, we're making copies of ourselves. At first this isn't much of an issue. But, as time goes on and we start making copies of copies of copies and things become more and more distorted and start going wrong.

A cure? Find a way to make better copies.

Saw a video on this in 10the grade. They were already talking about using stem cells to increase the length of telomeres for anti aging. I wouldn't be surprised if we cure aging in my lifetime. Or at least slow it greatly.

I'm pretty sure they are incorporating the telomere theory into cancer reasarch too...

I don't know about all that theroy stuff but what I do know is it isn't for sissies.

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Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmm............

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Welllllllllllllllllll.................

a day passes.........
and another day passes...........
and yet another day passes...........
and sooooo on.........
and there ya go............

Yer ............aging!!!!!!!!!!!

Parasites and toxins cause aging I believe. In a pure environment skin cells can live indefinitely.

"Time" itself does not cause aging. Time does not truly exist. Cause and effect exist and move in a single direction. That gives the illusion that time exists.

Welcome back JB....

Those damn Parasites!!! And they keep running for office!!!

and some times winning

getting old causes aging

Telomerase enzyme can repair some of the telomeres and a large amount of research is being done to find the magic combination of biochemicals which can repair telomeres throughout the human body.

Metabolism plays a huge part in forcing a cell to divide. Basically, if you feed a cell, it will "want" to divide. One of the most touted anti-aging techniques is to go on a near starvation diet. Less food discourages the cells from dividing which causes the loss of a telomere. Conversely, eating too much causes cell division and telomere loss.

yeah, what you're referring to is called Caloric Restriction/Dietary Restriction in animals. It's the only thing that scientists know for sure would extend the lifespan of any animal by slowing down metabolism which slows down whatever causes aging which they assume to be "damage". Aubrey de grey has even created a list of 7 forms of damage:
1. Extracellular Aggregates
2. Intracellular Aggregates
3. Mutant Mitochondria
4. Tissue stiffening (ex: Plaque build-up)
5. Nuclear/epi mutations
6. Death resistent cells (cancer)
7. Missing Cells

When we think about death, no one really dies of the widely thought idea of aging of just dying peacefully in bed. It always happens when a person dies of an actual illness such as a heart attack or cancer.
Aubrey essentially targeted the cause of all death causing diseases which would also be the cause of aging.

While the telomeres does shorten and theoretically causes cellular senescence in many cases, scientists have determined that it is not a big contributor to aging. Aubrey has determined that in a normal life span, telomeres will not shorten enough to cause a problem.
Other studies involving hematopoietic stem cells (blood stem cells) has shown that stem cells devoid of telomeres are able to produce blood just as well as stem cells with full lengthened telomeres.
The telomere theory of aging also has shown that telomere length has no correlation with life span. Humans have short telomeres relative to other animals and we life a lot longer - for example, a fly has telomeres many multitudes longer and yet their maximal life-span is only a few weeks.

I think someone has also posted a reasonable question about aging funding on futurist Ray Kurzweil's forum:
http://www.kurzweilai.net/forums/topic/why-the-hell-are-we-funding-cancer-and-heart-disease-research-but-not-aging