Product Description

Why has the life span of the average American increased from 48 to 75 years in this century alone?

. . . If the body is a machine that simply wears out, why do some cells seem immortal?
. . . Is there an aging gene? And can we control it?
. . . Can antioxidants and hormone therapy actually slow the aging process and extend life?

Steven Austad s compelling book investigates the history, the theories, and the personalities behind the quest to understand the nature of aging. Here is hard evidence from the front lines of research that science is finally closing in on the fundamental processes of human biology and life.

"Austad s book can be read with pleasure and profit by any intelligent person with a smattering of biological knowledge." Science

"In this clear, engrossing overview, Austad takes the sting out of a subject that will ultimately capture us all." Publishers Weekly

"Why We Age is remarkably rigorous in its analysis and thorough scope. . . . A comprehensive examination of its topic." Science Editors, Amazon.com

"The problem with long life is that one keeps getting older; here s an able and clearly written summary of the latest theories on why we age and what might be done to ameliorate the process." Kirkus Reviews

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #526794 in Books
• Published on: 1999-03-11
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

From Amazon.com
Before we know why we age, we need to know how we age. According to Steven Austad, we should blame the process on rusting and cooking. Oxygen causes our cells to rust, and glucose causes some of our tissues to take on the qualities of cooked meat. If we eat less food, we cook more slowly and we live longer. So, why do we age? Austad claims that we've evolved to have a certain reproductive usefulness, and after that the species doesn't need us anymore. What about all the "antiaging" equations modern science promises? Generally, the best they can do is prevent premature death. Sound harsh? Well, that's life, and Why We Age is one of the most entertaining and comprehensive guides on aging that you'll find.

From Kirkus Reviews
The problem with long life is that one keeps getting older; here's an able and clearly written summary of the latest theories on why we age and what might be done to ameliorate the process. Austad, a biologist at the universities of Idaho and Washington and science advisor to NPR, begins with an examination of longevity. Despite anecdotal claims of ages in excess of 150 years, modern medicine has concluded that there is no evidence of a human living much past the age of 120. While the human life span has unquestionably undergone a dramatic increase during this century, almost all the gain has come in the elimination of infectious diseases, especially those of childhood. If a complete cure for cancer were discovered tomorrow, it would add at most a couple of years to the average life expectancy. Austad notes other fascinating patterns, such as a huge leap in the male death rate during the period of ``testosterone dementia'': adolescence and early maturity. The discussion then turns to the biological mechanisms of aging. Among the explanations that have become current at various times is the notion that aging and death are evolutionary mechanisms for removing obsolete stock from the gene pool. Another theory is that there is an arbitrary limit on the number of times a given cell can divide; Austad refutes these and other theories. Especially interesting is his examination of the relation between menopause and aging, and the use of hormone therapies to inhibit aging in older women. Finally, he turns to the current theories, scientific and otherwise, on therapies to postpone aging: reduced calorie intake, exercise, and such trendy nostrums as melatonin. While he is skeptical of many of the claims for such anti-aging therapies, he remains optimistic that continued research may enable our descendants to look forward to a longer and healthier lifespan than we can. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Review
"Austad's book can be read with pleasure and profit by any intelligent person with a smattering of biological knowledge."--Science

"In this clear, engrossing overview, Austad takes the sting out of a subject that will ultimately capture us all."--Publishers Weekly

"Why We Age is remarkably rigorous in its analysis and thorough in scope . . . a comprehensive examination of its topic."--Science Expert Editors, Amazon.com

Customer Reviews

All the latest lore on aging, health, and nutrition
This is a relaxed, somewhat witty book on aging and health by a zoologist with an emphasis on evolutionary biology. I particularly enjoyed Austed's use of statistical analysis in the beginning of the book in distinguishing popular notions about aging from what the raw data has to say. Austed uses statistics beautifully here. When Kant was trying (unsuccesfully) to formulate a science of metaphysics, he asked what other real life example of synthetic (additive) thought a priori was used by people. Math! Austed uses math to demonstrate apodaectically that what we generally refer to as extending human life is no more than altered longevity due largely to water purification, antibiotics, and less back-breaking labor rather than an actual delaying of the aging process. He also shows how our species tends to begin dying at about ten years of age according to the statistical dictate of mortality-doubling time. The limits of how old we may grow as determined by genetics is evidently about what it was back in Socrates' time, although these days longevity is greater. If cancer, according to professor Austed, were eliminated we could add a couple of more years to average longevity and likewise with heart disease; the two most prolific killers in the industrialized world. However, even if we unrealistically eliminated all disease, not only would our genes kill us somewhere around 90 years of age, but many of us would die from accidents in any event. Aging is determined by our genetic program and chance, not necessarily in that order, and the only possible hope we have for extending our limits of aging per se lies in some far off genetically engineered discovery. Presently, if you don't get flattened by a bus, your genes will get you, no matter how many vitamins you scarf down.

As for special diets, lizard's eyes (special vitamins), and magnets and crystals, these are largely placebo actuators. Unless you have special nutritional needs, a sensible diet, adequate sleep, moderate excercise, and being rich are about as much as you can do to determine your future health and longevity outside of avoiding firefights with religious fanatics and other testosterone dementias. Austed doesn't really address low stress as a longevity booster except perhaps to mention the nobles tended to live longer than peasants in pre-antibiotic days. Austed excecutes a revealing discourse on tales of how certain societies in far away mountain regions tend to live to older than normal ages by eating goat yogurt and smoking ginko leaves: these are folk tales and the author uses various examples of innoent charlatanry to demonstrate exactly how gullible people are when they very badly want to hear what they've already made up their minds to believe.

I was a bit unmoved by Austed's refutation of the cellular Hayflick limit's role in aging. While controlled cell division is certainly crucial to normal development and cancer mitigation, cells, like whole organisms, are also sitting ducks for unforeseen catastrophy. A non-regenerating cell is also an accident waiting to happen through injury, free radical damage, or deliterious mutation. In terms of generalized deterioration (aging) nonregenerating cells are eventually going to deteriorate to the point where they outnumber healthy nonregenerating cells, at which point, disfunction (aging) is certain to occur; but then what do I know, maybe this is just "what I want to believe."

Austed's observation that we seek a way to study certain whale species for their menopausal physiology (rare in the animal kingdom) and lower than human cancer rates is intriguing. How this would be accomplished outside of simple skin sample research is questionable however.

All in all a good book to have read for interpreting the almost daily media reports of miracle breakthroughs in aging and health. Austed's reliance on hard statistical analysis is very helpful in this context.

An entertaining introduction to the science of aging
Why do we age? The simple answer is, there is no simple answer. The simplest "simple" answer is probably, we age because we live, and living wears our bodies out.

In order to live we breathe because our bodies use oxygen to convert food into energy. But in the process something called "oxidative damage" happens to our cells. In other words: we rust. Inevitably. The two other main reasons why bodies wear out are connected to glucose and "browning damage", and to self-repair mechanisms of our cells that fail to stop and lead to uncontrolled cell growth - what we call "cancer".

The three processes of rusting, browning and cancer are part of aging. They are "how" we age. But "why" do we age at all? Why don't we stay healthy for, say, 150 years and then simply drop dead? In very simple terms the reason is: aging is genetic. The genes do not care about the body after the body has served its purpose: to replicate the genes and ensure that they can replicate again. This is called the "selfish gene" theory, an expression coined by Richard Dawkins.

Gerontology, the study of aging, is a field of science in rapid growth. I do not claim to be a specialist; therefore I do not want to go into much detail here. Steven Austad's book explains very well "what science is discovering about the body's journey through life". He ends his book with a chapter of particular interest for women ("Reproductive Aging, Menopause, and Health"), and a chapter on our hopes of how to make the best of our ultimate genetic fate ("Slowing Aging and Extending Life: Remedies and Expectations").

Apart from Austad's humor - it can be both droll and dry - I have particularly enjoyed his short portraits of scientists in the field of gerontology and evolutionary biology, such as the geneticist J.B.S. Haldane, the immunologist Peter Medawar, the American scientist Raymond Pearl (who in 1938 produced the first paper analyzing the extent to which smoking reduced life expectancy, but also was of the opinion that people above 50 should forfeit their right to vote, because they would have grown too foolish), the German physiologist Max Rubner, the gerontologist Alex Comfort (who discovered the joy - and profitability - of sex), the biologist John Maynard Smith, and the two-time Nobel prize winner Linus Pauling.

Austad's cameo of Max Rubner is my favorite because of its psychological insight into the downside of dedication and narrow focus: "The first scientist to investigate the rate-of-living idea in any rigorous fashion was the German physiologist Max Rubner. Rubner could make people very uncomfortable with his Teutonic bluntness. He was noted for his long silences, punctuated with outbursts of aggressively sarcastic humor. But he was also an obsessively precise investigator of the energy contained in food and the use of that energy by animals. Like obsessives everywhere, he felt that the significance of his obsession was underappreciated by others."

This is the most amazing break through in science
Wow, I am impressed. I never expected this to be a good book when I saw it on my collage reading list. This turned out not only to be scientific jargon, but keeps the reader facinated with the authors great personality which comes through in the writing.

IF YOU BUY ONE BOOK EVER BUY THIS BOOK, AND IF YOU BUY ANOTHER, BUY THIS ONE AGAIN!