It's true. When it comes to speaking out on the critical importance of living expansively, to fomenting discontent with our current culture's woeful attitudes around aging, to being a ringleader in eldercare anarchy - I am utterly uncertified. Not so much as a single professional letter designation follows my name. Not one. But I am most wondrously inspired to be part of a charge into virtually uncharted territory, turning shirked from & shunned discussions on the power of age & aging into a wildfire of conversations on all that it offers, all that's impossible at any earlier time!
Those deep-into-the-night conversations aren't based on a researcher's certainty or a geriatrician's data. They're based on faith that growing old isn't a major goof by nature, but the crowning moment of our very existence. Plants are created in order to have their blooms admired, but to go to seed & generate a new generation. This doesn't happen as a seedling, or a flower in bloom, but after the plant appears to break down. In its apparent falling apart is its greatest power. As with plants, so to with humans. Are researchers & academics & other lofty experts likely to get their heads around that image? Not likely.
They can't even get their minds straight on the basics of aging! It could be argued they are possibly the worst people to pull into conversations on aging. What folks like yours truly considers crucially important, they see as sadly impotent. As for needing proper credentials to speak about aging - the only common thread I've discovered in scientific studies, journal articles or lofty discussions about aging is some variation on, "Darned if we know."
Seems to me that the combination of deep experience with a range of awesome elders plus the gift of wondrous inspiration puts me on good or better footing.
Let's take a look at some of today's experts on aging. Specifically, Joao Pedro de Magalhaes, in an article for senescence.info, Why Do We Age?*
Over the years, many theories have emerged to explain what process or mechanism drives aging (reviewed in Medvedev, 1990; Weinert and Timiras, 2003). In fact, almost every important discovery in molecular or cellular biology has led to a new family of theories of aging. Most theories of aging have old origins, but the inherent difficulties of studying human aging--such as the lack of adequate models--make testing these theories a difficult, lengthy, and expensive process. Moreover, interpreting the results, for example from longevity studies, is frequently controversial; discriminating between causes and effects of aging is often impossible. That is why, at present, no consensus exists over what causes aging, what determines rate of aging across mammals, or what changes occur in humans from age 30 to 70 to increase the chances of dying by over 30-fold.
How does the well-researched, carefully considered, clearly written article end?
Unfortunately, the inevitable conclusion of this section is that the jury is still out regarding mechanisms of aging. Although the search for a pacemaker of age-related changes continues, the bottom line is that all proposed mechanisms can be upregulated by some other--unknown or not--mechanism. The large number of aging theories is proof that our understanding of aging is still far from perfect; to quote David Rollo: "In any field of science, the true degree of understanding is inversely proportional to the number of explanatory theories that prevail." Even so, and since there are more doubts than answers in gerontology, we should not discard these theories easily. Life, and marveling life and death as we do in gerontology, is a game of probabilities. Some theories have gathered more evidence than others and hence may be more promising foci for future research and for developing anti-aging interventions. So please read on the different theories of aging and hopefully you can conjure better theories or determine ways to better test the current theories experimentally.
Aka, another version of "Darned if I know." Was not surprised, since the article was introduced with a quote from the ancient wisdom of The Talmud -
"We do not see the world as it is, we see the world as we are."
In What is Aging*, another article from the same site, Dr. de Magalhaes notes:
Although everyone is familiar with aging, defining it is not so straightforward. Aging can simply refer to the passage of time and can even have a positive connotation as in "aging wine." In the context of senescence.info, and unless otherwise noted, the term "aging" refers to the biological process of growing older in a deleterious sense, what some authors call "senescence" (Williams, 1957; Comfort, 1964; Finch, 1990). (Personally, I actually prefer the term "senescence." If this were an academic book, I would be tempted to use the term "senescence." Being a website with visitors from various backgrounds, I think the term "aging" is more accessible; "senescence" now also frequently refers to cellular senescence.) Aging is one of the most complex biological processes, whose definition is intrinsically related to its phenotype, as developed below.
Sigh... What a pity that he finds a positive connotation in "aging wine," but apparently can't conceive of an aging human body having a similar spin.
Two things came out of my extremely brief foray this morning (no more than 15 minutes of online searching "pathology of aging"):
- There's virtually no actually definitive studies on why we age, let alone how.
- There's not going to be, because such studies are "difficult, lengthy & expensive." Which wouldn't be an obstacle if the pharmaceutical behemoths could make a tidy profit, but they offer no enticing profits.
From what I've discovered, researchers have left the question of "What are the benefits of aging as we were created to grow older?" to those of us without those vaunted professional letters behind our names, the utterly uncertified & wondrously inspired souls who see more, much more behind the whys & wherefores of growing older, elderly, ancient.
In his 2015 TED Talk, Dr. de Magalhães poses the question, "What is aging & how do we prevent it?" He has inverted the actual question, which is,"What is the power within aging & how can we honor nurture it?"
Guess that will be the topic of my 2018 TED Talk!
*Copyright © 1997 - 2001, 2004, 2005, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2013 by João Pedro de Magalhães. All rights reserved.
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