Susan Jacoby, the author of “Never Say Die: The Myth and Marketing of the New Old Age,” has an excellent piece in the Dec 6, 2019, NYT entitled, "We are getting old, but not doing anything about it." Her theme—shared by me—is that we need to do much more to prepare for the aging population. We are the first generation in history that can—and …
Aging, the good and the bad
Why do we age? The overview
When do we start to age? Why do we age as the years pass? What causes aging? The theories below and much of this section come from the book "Borrowed Time, the science of why and how we age" by Sue Armstrong, published in 2019. Aging is most likely a complex interplay of several accumulated biologic errors or accumulated failures normally …
Genetic engineering to reverse aging
Last night CBS's 60 Minutes aired a show titled, "A Harvard geneticist's goal: to protect humans from viruses, genetic diseases, and aging." The link will take you to both the video and a transcript of the show. The show features George Church, who has worked in a Harvard genetics lab for 45 years. He holds 50 patents and has written over 500 …
What happens as we move from birth to old age?
We get older one day at a time starting at our birth. This is a process of change that does not stop until we stop. Birth, infancy, childhood, adolescence, reproductive and parenting years (which evolutionarily is what we are here to do), middle-age, early old age, and then old-old age. Just think about all of the many changes happening at all …
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Five phases of aging
Just as understanding the developmental stages from baby to young adult, helps us navigate the terrible twos or sullen teen years, we need to understand the main phases of our own future so we navigate better. I recommend planning for the entire continuum of phases since an injury or hospitalization can easily jump you ahead two or three phases. …