So, What’s Aging?

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Aging is a shift in our reality!

So What’s Reality?Created by Dr. Edward Lakatta, Dr. Harold Spurgeon, and Dr. Victor Maltsev

Reality emerges from a mutually coupled (enslaved) system of DNA

and its environment

DNA

Environment

Environment

Environment Environm

ent

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Sun, planets, Moon, asteroids, Sputnik

O2, CO2, smoke

Geographic, climate, radiation, pollutions, gravity

Traditions, Religion, “Mandates”

Friends, Relatives, Pets, Plants, Bacteria, Viruses

Soma, Psyche, and emergent characteristics: Personality, Cognition, Innate Brain, Behavior, Lifestyle, Nutrition, Exercise

Organ-to-organ communication: Brain-Nerves, Cardiovascular–circulation, Endocrine-circulating goodies

Extracellular matrix

Organelles, mitochondrial DNA, microRNA

Chromatin, Transcription factors, HATS, HDACS

Heredity

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Reality Is A System of Mutually Enslaved DNA and its Environment

DNA

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DNA

Aging is a constellation of failures in DNA-Environment system over time

Failing InteractionsD SignalsD Sensing of SignalsD Signal TransmissionD Response to SignalsD ProteostasisEnergy rundown

Aging is:A constellation of DNA-Environment system Failures over time, that result in Altered Cell Tissue and Organismal Phenotype Characteristics

CellsTissuesOrgansOrganism

Images from Mechanisms of Aging5

SO! Is Aging, per

se, A Disease?

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“Aging and disease are not synonymous.

There are processes of

aging and etiologies of disease. The relationship

between the two are important,

but not inevitable”

Nathan Shock, Ann. Rev.Physiol. 1961 7

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“... to draw a

distinction between

disease and normal aging is to attempt to

separate the undefined from

the undefinable”

J.G. Evans, Research and The Aging Population 19889

What’s Reality?

So

THIS is REALITY!