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Aging Humans and Aging Cells

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Aging 2000: Our Health Care Destiny

Summary

After reaching sexual maturity, individual members of a species accumulate physiologic decrements that lead to an increase in their likelihood of dying. This decline in function is called aging. For humans, the likelihood of dieing doubles every 7 years beyond the age of 30.

The triumphs of modern medicine have not lengthened the human lifespan. Medical successes merely have permitted more people to reach what appears to be fixed upper age limit. Life expectation has increased but life span has not. In many developed countries, one can now reasonably expect to become old, which is a very new phenomenon.

If the two leading causes of death in developed countries were to be eliminated (cardiovascular diseases and cancer), about 14 years of additional life expectation would occur for all age groups. Resolving all other causes of death would add an additional 2 years of life expectation. Thus if all causes of premature death were to be eliminated, all humans would live to be about 100 years of age. They would then dies as the result of normal losses in physiologic function which previously increased their vulnerability to an earlier death caused by diseases or accidents. The diseases of old age are simply superimposed on the normal physiologic decrements that occur after sexual maturation.

Studies on isolated human cells grown in laboratory cultures indicate that normal cells have a limited capacity to divide and to function. They have a chronometer that limits their replicative and functional capacity. Cells grown in culture from older donors have a reduced capacity to divide and function when compared to cells grown from younger donors. Before cells die in culture they reveal several hundred changes, many of which are similar to those changes that occur in the intact older human.

Current evidence leads to the belief that age changes are substantially due to changes that occur in the genetic machinery of individual cells. The changes apparently are induced by the same genetic program that operate throughout the life of the individual.

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Authors
  1. Leonard Hayflick
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Texas Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation Texas Research Institute of Mental Sciences, Texas Medical Center, 77030, Houston, Texas, USA

    Charles M. Gaitz M.D. (Head, Gerontolgy Center Assistant Director) & T. Samorajski Ph.D. (Chief, Neurobiology Section) (Head, Gerontolgy Center Assistant Director) &  (Chief, Neurobiology Section)

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© 1985 Springer-Verlag New York Inc.

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Hayflick, L. (1985). Aging Humans and Aging Cells. In: Gaitz, C.M., Samorajski, T. (eds) Aging 2000: Our Health Care Destiny. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-5058-6_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-5058-6_5

  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4612-9544-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4612-5058-6

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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