Definition
Cellular theories explain the aging process as originating in individual cells, either at the level of the genetic information or through changes in metabolism.
Description
The quest for understanding the process of aging is probably as long as human history, and its resolution is still far from clear or even assured. A major factor for this state of affairs is that aging is a complex, multifactorial process that develops during ontogeny gradually, at multiple levels, involving a certain degree of stochastic randomness. At a certain time (early 1990s), more than 300 various hypotheses were circulating for explaining aging, and, responding to a need for organizing such a vast catalogue, these hypotheses were classified as cellular theories that explain the aging process as originating in individual cells, either at the level of the genetic information or through changes in metabolism; system theories, that propose that aging, while expressed at the level of individual cells,...
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References and Further Reading
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Toescu, E.C. (2019). Cellular Theory of Aging. In: Gellman, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Behavioral Medicine. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6439-6_447-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6439-6_447-2
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