The vast complexity of organismal degeneration with age has too often intimidated gerontologists into over-cautious interpretation of their results. As a result, theories of mammalian aging have been too open and preliminary to underpin the design of medical interventions. This book breaks new ground in the effort to overcome that inertia, by providing a highly detailed and experimentally well-founded model of mammalian aging, together with analysis of the ways in which that model may be exploited to influence the rate of aging. It will benefit biologists, clinicians and the scientifically-minded layman alike, by giving a robust conceptual structure to compare with ongoing experimental and medical findings.