Aging
| A new study has found that there is no strong correlation between the patterns of aging and the typical life spans of different species. Plants, animals and other life forms can have increasing mortality and still live a long time, or have declining mortality and still live a short time. |
Adult humans get weaker as they age and then die, but that's not the typical pattern across species. For many organisms, the signs of aging never show up at all.
These are among the findings in a first-of-its-kind study recently published in the journal Nature.
In the study, the aging patterns of humans and 45 other species were compared.
"We all have preconceived notions about aging and what it should be like," said Pedro F. Quintana-Ascencio, a biologist at the University of Central Florida and one of the contributors to the study led by evolutionary biologist Owen Jones at the Max-Planck Odense Center at the University of Southern Denmark.
"But this study shows we really need to look at the aging process in more depth. All is not what it appears across species. Humans, especially modern humans, appear to be outliers," he said.
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The study found that mortality of some species, like humans and birds, increased with age. For some, such as Florida's hypericum the increase is slower. And for others, like the desert tortoise and certain trees, mortality declines with age.
“Many people, including scientists, tend to think that ageing is inevitable and occurs in all organisms on Earth as it does for humans: that every species becomes weaker with age and more likely to die. But that is not the case”, lead author Owen Jones from the Max-Planck Odense Center at the University of Southern Denmark, said.
“The diversity of mortality and fertility patterns in these organisms surprised us, and there is clearly a need for more research before we fully understand the evolutionary causes of aging and become better able to address problems of aging in humans,” says Jones.
Amazingly, there are also species that have constant mortality and remain unaffected by the aging process. This is most striking in the freshwater polyp Hydra magnipapillata (pictured at top) which has a consistent low mortality. In fact, in lab conditions, it has such a low risk of dying at any time in its life that it is effectively immortal.
Other researchers on the project were from the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany, the University of Queensland in Australia, and the University of Amsterdam in Holland. Several American universities also contributed to the study.
The researchers point out there is no strong correlation between the patterns of aging and the typical life spans of the species. Species can have increasing mortality and still live a long time, or have declining mortality and still live a short time, according to the Max-Planck Odense Center.
"It makes no sense to consider aging to be based on how old a species can become," Jones said. "Instead, it is more interesting to define aging as being based on the shape of mortality trajectories: whether rates increase, decrease or remain constant with age."
Based on continued analysis of what the components of low mortality are, will have great impacts on human longevity as the materials build up, and lead to advanced treatments. It appears that this study, and others like it are opening up the possibility of one day curing the aging problem.
SOURCE The Free Press Journal
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