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Thermodynamics: What Is Aging?

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What is Aging?

From the physical point of view, human aging is a process of cumulative changes, both morphological and physiological, resulting in a progressive diminution of our body and organs ability to defend from external aggression and to adapt to changing conditions.

There are many factors contributing to aging, but I will discuss three that are inherent to our body functioning. They are a natural outcome of our normal metabolism.

Free Radicals.

Free radicals are highly reactive molecules with an imbalance on their number of electrons. They are a sub-product of the energy generation process within our cells. This imbalance makes them react with our cells modifying their normal functioning.

Energy generation is a fundamental …show more content…

If you take a human fibroblast ( a type of cell) belonging to a child, it will divide itself around 60 times and it will stop proliferating. The same type of cell from a 40-year-old man will only divide around 40 times while in an 80-year-old man it will only divide around 30 times.

At that moment the fibroblast is detected as a damaged cell and it dies. It is a defense mechanism stopping damaged cells to reproduce, thus increasing tumor and cancer risk, but in the long run there is a progressive diminution of this response and the body will support an increasing number of malfunctioning cells.

Healthy Aging.

As we have just seen, stronk aging factors work from the inside. The way it looks, chances are science will not be able to to stop the process. So what can we do about it. The answer is Healthy Aging, a lifestyle allowing us to grow old while maintaining the best possible health condition.

It is only reasonable to think that if we decrease the aging factors the result will be a slower aging so let's discuss some ways to achieve that.

Free Radicals

A good way to slow down the aging process is to restrict the ingest of calories by eating more fruits and vegetables. This is a very effective method mainly

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