On Aging topics in the news

This article talks about a fairly new procedure being used on dogs and cats which helps them sort of defeat natural aging. This procedure includes use of stem cells and implantation into injured or deteriorating parts of the animals. This procedure, though costly, has improved the quality of life for many animals and shows a quick turn around for improved life. So far it has been used on ligament and joint deterioration problems, broken body parts, etc. and has led to a more sustainable happy life in the pets.
     This article is interesting for it considers other aging than just human. Honestly, I feel that this could lead to a procedure such as this being developed for humans which just more increases the implications of medicine shaping the way we live and age. Though this article is vague in the actual procedure it is interesting that there is a procedure out there making changes such as these. I imagine there are some ethical considerations due to the use of stem cells, but it could be an interesting addition to the human medical field someday as it is making strides in the veterinary world today.

On Financial Aging

Doing this I found how little I know about finances and money amounts. By putting in mere guesses at certain quantities I came out doing quite well in retirement, but this could be quite inaccurate. It was interesting how the outcome changed when considering being in a marriage and the benefit of a spouses income.  I feel like this would be more beneficial if I had some clue about what numbers really were realistic to go in the spaces. Interesting activity though.

On the Georgia Centenarian Study

Content:How does this information related or connect to other information that we've covered or you've read?

This study talked about topics such as diet effects on aging, various lifestyles effects on aging, and genetics and aging; all which have been talked about in class. It also discussed interesting new ideas about psychological connections to aging such as cognitive abilities as well as general attitudes about life. These are interesting points that I would hope to get more into. 

 

Self:What impact does this information have on you?

The information provided by the study could point me in various directions to make decisions or changes to my life to achieve maximum age. Since I don't feel the need to live a particularly long time, I focus on the quality of living of these people, for though many were quite aged they were capable of numerous functions that are not possible for all aged people. I would hope to adopt some of their lifestyles to achieve a better quality of life in my later age. 

World:Who else needs to know this information? What are potential implications?

Any human could benefit from this knowledge, it is not necessary for life but anyone who would like to maximize their life span or improve their quality of life as they age they could take away from this study.  The limitations of this study arise in their subjects being limited to various regions and numbers.  All the centenarians were Americans and mostly lived in the south region, but is this representative of the overall population of centenarians. Further implications arise in how the centenarians all lived in the same general era, the current populations health and aging process could be deeply effected by the differences among life styles in the current era. 

Practice:What additional ideas does this information give you? How can you use or apply this information?

Is there anything else you want to know?

As discussed previously learning this information could potentially help me to live to later ages, or achieve a better quality of life in age. I feel like this is limited though, for what is it that I can apply to my life now? I am actually confused how this changes my life now. These are just things I can try to apply later in life. I would like to learn more about psychological connections to aging.

On How Long I Will Live

My test stated that I would live to be 91 years old. I feel like this is a bit of a stretch, and I would doubt its accuracy. I do feel that if I were to take this later in life it may be able to tell me with greater accuracy based on how my life had progressed. 
     I feel I am most skeptical about this prognosis based on the questions and the obvious target age of the users of this tool. Since I am in school, and living a much younger life style than what I would expect later in life, I feel that my answers to their question were not representative of who I will be later in life. Plus many of their questions I feel targeted an older age range. 
    My largest concern with the question was their limited answer choices. There were many answer choices that reached the extremes but not enough of the intermediate possibilities.  Either way I would not trust this test to tell me with accuracy but maybe it could give a relative range of younger versus older..

On genes as a means of aging

For an article I went on a search which focused on plant aging, for in all we have learned I see how we focus on mammals.  I feel that plants could have a significant story about aging for there are species of trees which can last a long time.
     The article I found mainly attempted to answer the questions. What is the process of aging and plants and how it is regulated and recognized? It is a long arduous article, but it has some great points on how genes are contributors to the aging process.

   The plant used in this research has a cell process which occurs in a predictable manner, making it easy to monitor and recreate in various situations and easy to manipulate. The article refers to the senescence in the plant cells as programmed cell death (PCD) of the leaf. This connects to the greater idea of genes holding the map of life, deciding when the cells will die- as though it is coded in the genes for the plants to live a certain length of time.
    The idea of the aging of plants arises in the dual situations of aging. One is replicative senescence or the degeneration of the cell preventing further divisions of the cell. The other, post mitotic aging, happens after cellular maturity is reached. This sparks some curiosity in my aging understanding, making the ways in which aging occurs on the cellular level by many factors more evident.
    Then finally, one of my favorite topics arose as they discussed how the plants aging depends on genes as well as environmental factors such as stress and nutrients, but there is proof of overlap for these biologists believe that genes play a role in interpreting/inducing the characteristics brought about by environmental persuasion. I have delved into this topic much in my experiences in Biology, but this is the first instance where genes have arisen as accessories in the act of nature on the development of an organism, though this idea makes complete sense.  The researchers lead into their discovery of Sags, or senescence associated genes. These are later broken down into classes of genes five of which are involved in the initiation of senescence in the cells and one which carries out the process in the cell. 
    Later they touch on a subject which i have developed an interest in when they post whether there should be a cellular mechanism that can measure the age of a cell. If senescence in a cell is dependent in large part on the genes of the cell, why then can’t the genome be read to determine the age of the cell. Though I am sure there is much more to this implication than meets the eye. I feel this topic could someday be of great importance- if it can ever be harnessed for use. 

Truly an interesting topic..I'm eager to hear more in class.

Things about aging that have come up in my life.

     Over the weekend, I engaged in a conversation with a few people about ages. We had each gone around answering questions about ourself including age. I introduce myself and tell how I am often mistaken for an older age. Just after me a girl introduced herself as 20 but told stories about how she is commonly mistaken for a younger age. After the introductions were complete we were given time to more or less discuss what we had learned about each other. The other members of the group quickly noted that they completely had not expected us to be the ages we stated. This brings to mind how aging effects the way we look, not just our abilities or our thoughts, but our physical apperance, and does this physical apperance have any effect on other aspects of our age. Can age be defined in many sects? Could someone appear to be older, have the abilities of someone their age, but have mental capacities of someone younger? or any mix of this idea.
     Then today in biology we discussed telomeres- a biological part of DNA which has been determined to directly correlate with aging of cells and organisms.  This was awesome for it explained much about telomeres I had not known when reading about the Telomerase Theory of Aging as discussed in my last post.
     I learned that the telomere is a strand of DNA which attatches to the end of the lagging strand when the Primase cannot attach a primer to the parent strand (because there is no start position) leaving a portion of the parent strand unpaired. Instead of allowing for the constant shortening of the DNA strand telomerase attatches furthere bases to lengthen the strand. This in turn can lengthen life and decrease the aging process.  Tests have been conducted where telomerase was disculded from a rat/mouse species and this drastically decreased their lifespan. I find this interesting as we learn about these aspects of aging (meaning the microbiological and biochemical aspects of life. So how do telomeres correspond to oxidation and metabolism. Or is this just another aspect in the world of aging which shows how complex the subject really is?

If my description of telomeres is unclear let me know and I can be more clear.

On Why Aging Happens.

I evidently got a little mixed up with the assignments, so this is a bit out of order but better late than never...

     Before getting into this reading, "Why Aging Happens," I want to sort of predict that it will delve into many biological aspects of aging which I am truly excited for and feel I will understand well.  Though I was thrilled coming into this class expecting it to  focus primarily on psychological aging, but I like that we are starting with the biological perspective on the subject.

     Well off the bat this reading makes more sense knowing that Senescence means aging/ growing old.  An early point made in the theories of aging involves scientists finding the subtle changes in our body  which correlate with aging. I use the word correlate for though the article calls them "signs" or "causes" of aging how do we prove this.  If the changes are so subtle how is it we categorize them with aging and not just living? It is strange to thing of ways to quantify the aging of a biological organism.
     I find the evolutionary theory "for the good for good of the species" theory. Saying that aging is not a personal benefit but is necessary for the success of others living.  We don't age for our own benefit but for the good of the population. For if individuals didn't age and die evolution could not happen. So we age, and we die, and we allow for our species to adapt to the world which naturally changes around us. Were just that kind I guess, we give up our youth so more youth can come in better adapted and live life for us...So we must die for we can not adapt as individuals enough to outlive the elements (this is assumed), and in order to die we must age right?... I suppose we could stay youth... its possible, but this could get into a sociological idea where populations must have a variety of ages and death must happen. But then the individuals would need to be more capable of various tasks and adapt individually (or maybe that is what aging is, just the reaching adaptations and the progressing after experiences): a topic I feel could carry on for quite some time.
p.s. this "for the good of the species" theory tells of aging as it applys directly to death, but without considering why death happens can we look at aging by it self..

     I find this theory to be quite interesting though, I look forward to discovering more theories and creating new opinions on the topic.

I did find this which talks about many theories (including our mitochondrial build up theory and more) but I was particularly interested in the Telomerase Theory of Aging which applies to the microscopic world and funnels down to the molecular biological level, saying that we die cause our cells die, because their DNA dies.  This applies to the telomeres and their shortening as they divide and create new cells. This brings me to question: what about the idea that death is part of a destiny? Like when we die is coded into our DNA?

I'm beginning to find I have more questions than I know what to do with.

On What Processes Cause Aging

     I find this reading to be wonderfully educational and interesting.  I am thankful that we have started here with a biological approach to what aging truly is. I never thought about the evolutionary aging effects and the ideas such as birds having exceptionally healthy aging.  This idea comparing the aging rates of humans to other organisms strikes my interests in my biological studies, but I will continue to hold out until plants and non-animal organisms are discussed. 

     Thinking about how aging is caused by a natural progression of the body is one thing, but connecting it to the processes that keep us alive and thus release chemicals which more or less pollute our bodies and lead to the degeneration of our bodies.  This shows how living really does lead to aging in a scientifically explained manner.  What if humans found a way to extract these excess chemicals from the body or discover a way to put them to a different use? Could we then end the effects of aging and craft a world where people can live forever? Could these cure diseases caused my aging such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases?  And an additional question side topic, what are doctors doing now in preventative measures of aging effects? Are there any preventative measures taken for Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s diseases?
     It is intriguing, the idea that aging cannot be escaped. No matter how healthily you live your life you body will still naturally age bit by bit.  So instead of thinking of healthy activity of healthy living one could consider a healthy lifestyle a process of healthy aging, which brings me to look at this course differently for we may not be looking at healthy patterns of aging but rather living healthy lifestyles in attempts to age in a healthier process.  However, the course title could also still refer to any topic involved in healthy aging, and I personally still would love to explore the idea of healthy psychological aging.  Not knowing the true definition still brings me to see how much I still have to learn and even though I have heard so many definitions of healthy aging I encounter more everyday.  The next step is to find one that I believe fits the concept best and define healthy aging for myself, but I want to be more knowledgeable first. 
     The reading discusses in detail the effect of cellular respiration on aging and this is shocking to me that our natural processes which are essential to keep us alive are ultimately pulling us closer to death.  Then into the factor that leads mitochondria to fail and cause oxidation in the body shows even more how serious this process of the mitochondria and its output is. I find this to be highly interesting and even more understandable why society strives to be healthier and reduce oxidants and why antioxidants are so important.  But if aging occurs naturally why should we try to reverse the effects? Why don't we just work to maintain them at a healthy level? Or is that what we are doing?

And with this my mind is racing with all the possibilities behind this idea of "healthy aging" what a semester it will be. (:

     Then on a complete tangent I would like to compliment the writer of this book.  He writes in way which draws the reader to fully understand the information but also provides some relief from the straight facts.  I enjoy his anecdotes and little additives (such as that about catalase and glutathione being good scrabble words) and just the use of specific case stories to allow for a full understanding of all that goes into what he is writing about.  This often is not accomplished in these sorts of texts. It’s refreshing to read a scientific book that is entertaining as well as educational. 

And the learning begins.

While reading up on various topics about healthy aging i came upon this quote from here

Older people tend to feel about 13 years younger than their chronological age.

Which comes from a study of numbers of men and women who reported on how they felt about their age.  They were tracked over a period of 6 years and told about their satisfaction with aging.

I feel like this is contradictory to what I have believed for a long time, for older people constantly complain about how old they feel and the various losses they have in their world (eye sight, motor functions, etc.).  This also is bizarre for it sets a standard for how an age actually feels.  Why isnt it that these people suggested in the quote actually feel their age and other just feel older than their age. These people are being analyzed from what sounds like self reports and this has to be weaker than information brought about by psychological analysis.  Ultimately I feel as though these feelings of the subjects could totally be created in their minds- I would be highly interested in a study where a subject was not informed of thier age ever and at an appropriate age was put into positions which would be found by socitey to be better suited for a different age group.  I feel the outcome of such a study could tell us more about age and what makes us "feel" younger or older. As that same website suggests that many of the stereo typical factors that humans tag with being "old" come more from the depression and inactivity of the elderly than the age themself. Old people who do regular activities and start new things can actually avoid the common effects of aging. 

Note to self healthy aging= do activites that make you feel younger.  

What does it mean to age healthily?

When looking into this course I imagined this whole aging idea referred mostly to the aspect of aging in terms of psychology, or the mental capacities and behavioral characteristics of aging. After our first day of class my ideas have changed a bit to look more at healthy living, in terms of physical characteristics like building a healthy body. However, I would like to define healthy aging as moving forward in life in a manner which keeps you close to the average bounds of your age range.  Whether this definition refers to psychology or physical traits this can be what defines healthy aging, one whose characteristics fit societal standards for their age group.  Though I would rather keep society out of this who idea.  With this definition I would say something like a 12 year old who is independent, responsible for herself, employed in a full time job, etc. would not be healthily aged.  I am still rather confused and curious as to what may truly be meant by this "healthy aging" thing so next I will do some research and come up with out others define it.