You naturally slow down as you age. Fight that tendency. It will still happen, but not as rapidly. Keep active mentally and physically. Eat well. Minimal red meats. Avoid ultra-processed foods, especially those snacks that sneak up on your heart.
As we live, we age. Aging includes the degradation of our mitochondria. They do hazardous work for our bodies. Normally, when they become useless, they’re eliminated, but the process is not perfect. Cells with too few functioning mitochondria don’t have enough energy to do their jobs in our bodies. Organs become less efficient.
A serious area of research today studies senescent cells, cells that aren’t doing their jobs. Our bodies have a mechanism to eliminate them, but it’s not very efficient. They accumulate. It’s like having a factory with lazy workers. Senolytic drugs help our bodies eliminate these cells, which also can cause inflammation. It’s as though those lazy workers actively sabotage the workers who are working. This is one mechanism that slows us down and turns our skins into parchment.
Maintaining the best quality of life in our senior years takes work. Many give up.
We can be waylaid by a number of illnesses. Lifestyle can postpone some. Smoking can hasten some. Eventually, the damaged cells mean that organs can no longer do their jobs well enough to sustain life, and it ends.
When you compare our pace of life (based on metabolic rates) with our lifespans, we do remarkably well. Based on our heart rate, we should live half as long as we do.
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