Aging is a treatable condition! For centuries aging and a particular human lifespan have been widely thought to be an inescapable and fundamental aspect of human existence. However, today there is an increasing understanding that aging is treatable, like a disease, and that therefore anti-aging medicine and lifespan extension are possible.
Why do we age? Although Darwin’s evolution theory explains the vast majority of observations concerning the evolved designs of living organisms including humans, scientists have struggled for more than 160 years to explain why we age in evolutionary terms. Modern theories of biological aging are based on relatively minor modifications to Darwin’s ideas about the nature of the evolution process and there is still no wide scientific agreement on any single aging theory. In addition, these theories have drastically different predictions regarding the treatability of aging and the nature of the biological mechanisms that cause aging and highly age-related diseases like cancer, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s disease. Modern thinking has been greatly affected by relatively recent discoveries especially in the area of biological inheritance (genetics). This book describes the history and current status of aging theories and explains why the newest theories are much more likely to be valid and much more optimistic regarding our ability to treat aging.