So, scientists have found evidence of what seems to control the aging process.



I won't spoil the info, it's really best if you read it for yourself. Effective human testing and whatnot probably won't be for another 10 or so years. If it happens.

I think I may have heard about this. If I'm correct it was located in the mitochondrial DNA of people's cell's. Those organelle's may hold a lot more secrets than we heard of. The other place may be located on a gene (forget the name of it) if I'm correct.

plantkingman : Not the mitochondrial, but the chromosomal. The name you are looking for are telomeres. 

Telomeres are at the end of each chromatid. When a cell divides, the DNA replication process is unable to reach the very end of the chromosome. So in a world without telomeres, we would lose important DNA code in our chromosomes every single time division happened. Telomeres are like buffers, where they offer more 'useless coding' so all the important DNA codes are replicated before DNA replication has to end.

The problem is that telomeres are a part of chromosomes, so during the replication process, the very last bits of the telomere are not replicated since it cannot go all the way to the end of the chromosome. So with each replication, the telomere gets shorter and shorter. Eventually, that buffer is too short to completely be a proper buffer for the cutoff location of DNA replication. So you slowly start to lose little bits of your DNA code that is responsible for things like replacing elastin in your skin, osteoblasts, and other body maintenance things. With less elastin, your skin starts to droop and wrinkle. Without osteoblasts, you loose bone mass. With other parts you slowly start losing, you can't produce proper digestive enzymes, giving you digestion problems. All those signs of aging are just your telomeres becoming too short to keep your chromasomal DNA from slowly being lost with each division. 

rcarter2 : I have about this, for some reason I was thinking about mitochondria for some reason. Thanks for clearing it up.

Do you want to control the aging process?

Eat healthy.  Exercise.  Stay out of a lot of direct sunlight.  Read and create.  Learn how to deal with stress effectively.  Stay off the couch or chair for long periods during the day.  Love.

It's that simple.

Okay, I really don't know how a post I made as a thread in a different forum ended up here. Did the board go through some kind of change while I was gone for a while?

Was there going to be a link...10 years? I'll just buy a death clock next year and take all of the suspense out of the aging mystery.