Age Expectancy

The age calculator used for this week produced some surprising answers. At this point in time, I am satisfied with the age my answers generated. The questions asked were reasonable and they encompassed several aspects of aging (daily activities, family history, etc).


After taking this quiz I started to wonder about a few things. As things change (e.g. I have children) would the life expectancy change? Will changes in eating and exercise routines affect this expected age?

The last thing that surprised me was regarding the vitamin questions. I do not take vitamins daily yet the suggestions on how to prolong my life did not include anything regarding beginning to take nutritional supplements.

Genetics and Aging

For this week, I looked in a few different places to find an article. Eventually I stumbled on this article from Time magazine that is a fairly easy read regarding a genetic link to aging that scientists found. This article is about a year old so this isn't exactly news to some.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1963637,00.html

In this article, the concept of telomere shortening was linked to aging. Telomere shortening is a phenomenon that I have heard thrown around before in connection with aging. While I do think that telomere shortening may have something to do with aging, I don’t believe it is the only genetic basis behind aging.  As the article notes, environmental factors do appear to influence cell aging rates. Most mutations caused in genes by environmental factors are repaired before they become a larger issue. Telomere shortening may be linked to the decrease in a cells ability to repair mutations caused by environmental factors. This is just an idea but it will take years of research to discover if there is any relationship between telomere shortening and cell repair processes.

The article also says there is no quick fix for telomere shortening and if there is a fix, we may trade heart disease for a high risk of cancer. I am starting to believe that any “solution” for aging comes with a price tag and that maybe there is a reason humans possibly have a definitely life span of approximately 100 years for a reason we have yet to find.