Abstract
It becomes clearer and clearer that aging is a result of a significant number of causes and it would seem that counteracting one or several of them should not make a significant difference. Taken at face value, this suggests, for example, that free radicals and reactive oxygen species do not play a significant role in aging and that the lifespan of organisms cannot be significantly extended. In this review, I point to the fact that the causes of aging synergize with each other and discuss the implications involved. One implication is that when two or more synergizing causes increase over time, the result of their action increases dramatically; I discuss a simple model demonstrating this. It is reasonable to conclude that this might explain the acceleration of aging and mortality with age. In this regard, the analysis of results and mortality patterns described in studies involving yeasts and Drosophila provides support for this view. Since the causes of aging are synergizing, it is also concluded that none of them is the major one but many including free radicals, etc. play significant roles. It follows that health/lifespan might be significantly extended if we eliminate or even attenuate the increase of a few or even just one of the causes of aging. While the synergism between the causes of aging is the main topic of this review, several related matters are briefly discussed as well.
Highlights
According to Harman [1], “Aging is the progressive accumulation of changes with time that are associated with or responsible for the ever-increasing susceptibility to disease and death which accompanies advancing age” and “the sum of the deleterious free radical reactions going on Antioxidants 2015, 4 continuously throughout the cells and tissues constitutes the aging process or is a major contributor to it”
While many authors believe that free radicals and oxidative stress play an insignificant role in aging, it is hard to disagree with the clearly expressed view [2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10] that aging is the generated by multiple causes damage to the structures and functions of the molecules, cells, organs, etc., of an organism
All of this should not be taken to mean that aging-related damage does not occur at all in dividing cells and prior to the end of reproduction and that such damage cannot contribute to the development of diseases, especially in organisms having longer chronological lifespans than yeasts
Summary
According to Harman [1], “Aging is the progressive accumulation of changes with time that are associated with or responsible for the ever-increasing susceptibility to disease and death which accompanies advancing age” and “the sum of the deleterious free radical reactions going on Antioxidants 2015, 4 continuously throughout the cells and tissues constitutes the aging process or is a major contributor to it”. While many authors believe that free radicals and oxidative stress play an insignificant role in aging (if any), it is hard to disagree with the clearly expressed view [2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10] that aging is the generated by multiple causes damage to the structures and functions of the molecules, cells, organs, etc., of an organism. It is reasonable to suggest that significant damage (aging) occurs when the force (level) of more than one cause of aging increases substantially and/or if the efficacy of more than one assurance mechanism decreases considerably over time In this case, if the causes of aging (structural and functional damage) interact synergistically in causing damage, the rate of generation of damage, and the rate of aging, increases dramatically with time. The significance of the synergism between the causes of damage and aging is the main focus of this review but some related matters such as the significance of free radicals and oxidative stress as causes of aging are discussed as well
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