Healthy Aging Research
Open Access

A Note on Biological Theory of Aging

John Milton^{* *}Correspondence: John Milton, Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Delaware, Newark, USA, Email:

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About the Study

Turning older is known to as aging or ageing. Humans, a variety of other animals, and fungus are the main organisms that are known to possess biological immortality; however, simple organisms, perennial plants, and germs may also be able to do so. A single cell that has stopped dividing within an organism as well as the entire population of a species can both be considered old.

Ageing in humans is the best utilize of a person's modifications over time, which may include social, psychological, and physical changes. For instance, while memories and general knowledge generally get enhanced with age, reaction time may slow down [1].

Numerous human diseases, including as cancer, Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, stroke, and many more, are more likely to occur by ageing. Approximately 2 of the 150,000 people who pass away global every day on average do so as a result of age-related conditions.

Ageing versus immortality

Both humans and other species, particularly animals, experience ageing and death. Even fungi may age. Contrarily, many species can be thought of as potentially immortal, such as bacteria that divide to create daughter cells, strawberry plants that develop runners to create clones of themselves, and animals in the genus Hydra that have the ability to regenerate in order to prevent aging-related death [2].

Signs

Most people or a sizable portion of people encounter a variety of typical ageing symptoms during the course of their lifespan.

As people age, dementia becomes more prevalent. Dementia affects roughly 3% of persons aged 65 to 74, 19% of those aged 75 to 84, and nearly half of those over 85 [3]. The spectrum includes conditions like moderate cognitive impairment as well as neurodegenerative illnesses including Parkinson's disease, Lou Gehrig's disease, Alzheimer's disease, and Cerebrovascular disease.

Additionally, while many types of memory deteriorate with age, semantic memory and general information, such as vocabulary definitions, usually improve with age or remain stable until late in adulthood. Although the pace of decline varies depending on the type of intelligence, it generally stays constant for the majority of the lifespan before dramatically declining as people get older [4]. Therefore, individual differences in the pace of cognitive decline may be explained by a person's life expectancy [5].

Evolution of ageing

Like other traits, life span has undergone selection throughout evolution. Even if a trait causes an earlier demise, it will be selected for if it aids in early survival and reproduction. Such a genetic effect is known as the disposable soma effect when referring to an entire genetic programme and is known as the antagonistic pleiotropy effect when referring to a gene [6]. However, even single-celled species like yeast have been used as ageing models; as a result, ageing has a considerably longer biological history than multicellularity.

Society and culture

Age is expressed differently in different cultures. An adult human's age is often expressed in whole years since the day of birth. Juvenile, early adulthood, middle adulthood, and late adulthood are some examples of arbitrary divides used to denote stages of life. Teenagers, tweens, twenty-somethings, thirty-somethings, etc., as well as "denarians," "vicenarians," "tricenarians," and other more informal terminology, may be used [7].

Economics: The number and proportion of older individuals in the population are both rising. Three factors may contribute to population ageing: migration, increased life expectancy (lower death rate), and lower birth rate. Society is significantly impacted by ageing. Young people are more likely to strive for political and social change, to invent and embrace new technologies, to need education, and to have less legal rights. Older individuals have distinct expectations of society and the government, as well as frequently different ideals, such as those about ownership of property and pension entitlements [8].

Sociology: Ageing is viewed from five different perspectives in the fields of sociology and mental health: ageing as maturation, ageing as decline, ageing as a life-cycle event, ageing as generation, and ageing as survival. Economics, employment, marriage, children, education, sense of control, and many other factors frequently have positive correlations with ageing [9]. Disengagement theory, activity theory, selectivity theory, and continuity theory are all part of the social science of ageing. Retirement, a common change experienced by seniors, may have both favourable and unfavourable effects. Some theorists contend that new definitions of ageing must be created in light of the current development in cyborgs. One such definition is the bio-techno-social definition of ageing [10].

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