The CompX Research Institute invites you to visit its new website, “The New Aging Paradigm,” which finally answers the question “What causes aging?” It’s astonishing that prior to now there has been no generally accepted theory that explains why aging occurs. All scientific phenomena have a discernible cause. How is it possible that the most fundamental of allbiological processes is unexplainable?
The threshold problem is that there isn’t even a generally accepted definition of aging. Rather than trying to define such an amorphous term, the Institute focused its analysis on the most salient characteristic of aging – the progressive diminution in functionality that is associated with advancing chronological age. For reasons that are explained on the website, the Institute labels that phenomenon “functional decline syndrome,” or “FDS,” rather than “biological aging.”
Substantially all aging theorists would agree that FDS results from the accumulation of intrinsic damage over the decades. The natural state of matter is to be inanimate – dead. The human organism is comprised of trillions of cells, each of which is a complex organism with a limited lifespan, typically measured in days. As a result, we lose over 50 billion cells per day. That’s not because of any aging process. All humans of all ages lose over 50 billion cells per day. Cells (and all other biological components) just aren’t designed to last very long. All of those damaged and dead components have to be removed and replaced. Identifying, removing and replacing 50 billion specialized components per day is an incredibly complex task. No biological process can be perfect. Thus it is inevitable that some intrinsic damage accumulates.
Intrinsic damage is an inexorable force that has been a challenge to survival for every complex organism that has ever existed on the planet. A multicellular organism is capable of surviving beyond the lifespan of its individual components only because it has maintenance processes that remove and replace cells that die, and backup maintenance processes that remove and replace tissue damage that results from the lower level processes being imperfect.
If our maintenance processes worked perfectly, we would not suffer from FDS. But they don’t. Over time, accumulating intrinsic damage interferes with the proper functioning of the affected organs and systems. That, in a nutshell, is what causes FDS – the failure of our maintenance systems to work perfectly. Eventually the accumulation of intrinsic damage so compromises the functioning of a particular organ or system that it is recognized as one of the age-associated diseases, such as cardiovascular disease or dementia. As FDS continues to progress, at some point a critical organ or system has a catastrophic failure, which we call death by natural causes.
So why doesn’t the maintenance system work perfectly?
Remarkably, prior to the work of the Institute, no one has addressed this question. Conventional scientists have not even acknowledged the existence of the human maintenance system. If you were to Google the term “human maintenance system,” you wouldn’t find anything that pertains to aging or cell replacement or tissue repair. But if you were to Google the term “bone remodeling,” you would discover numerous articles that explain that we do have a sophisticated maintenance process that removes and replaces damaged bone tissue. That’s just one maintenance process. The healing process is another. Mitochondrial turnover is yet another. The Institute has found dozens of articles and studies that describe, imply or allude to maintenance processes that are designed to maintain the health and functionality of every organ and system comprising the human organism. All of these processes are components of the maintenance system. As we explain on the website, our maintenance system shares many characteristics with our immune system, including the fact that it took centuries for the scientific establishment to acknowledge the existence of either of them.
Thomas Kuhn’s 1962 book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, explains why conventional scientists have a blind spot when it comes to maintenance systems. In his book, Kuhn used the term “paradigm” to describe the set of preconceptions that is assumed to represent the objective reality of a particular field of science at any given time. It’s what “everyone knows” to be true about a subject without even thinking about it. The paradigm determines how scientists view the world, and how they interpret observations. As a result, some phenomena are highlighted, while others, such as the maintenance system, are ignored. Most people are not even aware of the perceptual limitations imposed by a paradigm.
Life scientists have always regarded complex metazoans as machines – left to their own devices, they should thrive indefinitely, subject only to the need to occasionally replace a worn out or damaged component. Maintenance, in the words of one eminent aging theorist, should be a “doddle.” Thus scientists attempting to explain aging have ignored the significance of the maintenance system. The preconception is that in the unlikely event that we even have maintenance processes, they are inherently ineffectual.
As Kuhn observed, for practitioners in a particular field, the then-current paradigm is reality; challenging the paradigm is akin to questioning reality itself. That’s why our website is called the “New Aging Paradigm.” The Institute challenges the current aging paradigm – we argue that what “everyone knows” to be true about aging is inconsistent with objective reality. Our website is a manifesto calling for a paradigm shift.
Our proposed paradigm shift is deceptively simple – just acknowledge that there is an overwhelming body of evidence supporting the notion that all complex organisms are endowed with maintenance systems that have evolved over the eons.
Looking at aging-related questions and problems through that “new gestalt” would, as Kuhn describes in his book, result in a scientific revolution (that’s why his book about paradigm shifts is entitled The Structure of Scientific Revolutions). For example, a critical metric for aging theorists is longevity, which is the length of time that a member of a species is expected to live in the absence of aging-independent causes of death, such as predators and starvation. No one has been able explain why the longevity of otherwise similar species can vary so remarkably. All mammals, including humans, are descended from a common ancestor. How and why do we appear to age at different rates?
Once one acknowledges that all complex species have maintenance systems, it’s apparent that the longevity of a species is a function of the capabilities of that species’ maintenance system. That’s no different than stating that the intelligence of a species is a function of the capabilities of the brain/central nervous system of that species. And, like the brain/nervous system, the maintenance system of each species evolved in very different ways over the eons.
The fundamental principle of natural selection is that desirable traits – those that promote survival and reproductive success – are inherited by succeeding generations. Increased longevity is a desirable trait, so mutations that would enhance the capabilities of the maintenance system, thus extending longevity, would be inherited. But there is a limit. Extending the longevity of a species beyond the natural lifespan of the species (the period of time before all members of the species would necessarily die from non-age-associated causes in the evolutionary environment) confers no evolutionary benefit.
For example, in their evolutionary environment, over 95% of the members of the species that is now used as lab rats die from non-age-related causes within the first year of existence. The number that survive even a second year is infinitesimally small. So the natural lifespan of the species is about two years. An enhancement of the rat’s maintenance system that would extend its longevity beyond a couple years would confer no benefit, because in the evolutionary environment, all of the rats would inevitably die from an aging-independent cause before the trait became relevant. So lab rats have rudimentary maintenance systems that are fully effective for only a couple years. After a lab rat has outlived the effectiveness of its maintenance system, it will show signs of biological aging.
Contrast the lab rat with another rodent — the naked mole rat. The naked mole rat evolved in an environmental niche that was protected from predators. Thus life-extending mutations to its maintenance system did confer an evolutionary advantage; those traits were favored by natural selection and became part of the naked mole rat genome. The naked mole rat is notable for having a lifespan that can exceed three decades.
Evolutionary principles dictate that the maintenance systems of all species have evolved to the point where they are capable of functioning perfectly throughout the natural lifespan of the species. Our website cites numerous peer-reviewed articles and studies that confirm that no complex species exhibits any signs of FDS in their evolutionary environment (i.e., one with robust predator populations where the individual members of the species must compete for food). That’s because they all die before they outlive the effectiveness of their maintenance systems.
Accepting one of the basic premises of the New Paradigm – that humans have robust maintenance systems that have the potential of functioning perfectly throughout our natural lifespans – will have enormous practical ramifications. The most intransigent problem confronting our healthcare system is age-associated degenerative diseases, such as dementia, cardiovascular disease and osteoporosis. The United States spends trillions of dollars each year “treating” these diseases, but scientists have made no meaningful progress in developing preventions or cures for them. In order to prevent or cure any disease, one needs to address its cause. All age-associated degenerative disease result from decades of accumulating damage – FDS. But under the current paradigm, the causative phenomenon is assumed to be an integral component of an inevitable and natural biological aging process. The paradigm itself renders any prevention or cure impossible.
The New Paradigm offers a new approach. It explains that the root cause of all degenerative disorders is that one or more maintenance processes is doing a less than perfect job of identifying, removing and replacing damaged components. In other words, for example, Alzheimer’s disease is a result of the brain remodeling process functioning in a less than optimal manner for decades. As noted above, evolutionary principles mandate that our brain remodeling process is capable of functioning perfectly throughout our natural lifespans. Thus, there must be some environmental agent that is causing a minor, chronic disruption of the brain remodeling process. In theory, if that environmental agent could be identified and neutralized, it would be possible to prevent and/or cure Alzheimer’s disease. And the same would be true of all other age-associated degenerative diseases.
The bottom line is that, if the medical establishment would acknowledge the significance of the human maintenance system, and could identify and neutralize the environmental factor(s) that is preventing it from functioning in an optimal manner, we could eradicate FDS, thus eradicating the age-associated degenerative diseases.
The age-associated degenerative diseases constitute by far the biggest pandemic in the history of the world. Worldwide, over 100,000 people per day are killed by these diseases. Our website cites peer-reviewed articles that suggest that eradicating FDS would result in a financial windfall that would be some multiple of $30 trillion. The New Paradigm suggests a path that will lead to the eradication of FDS and all of the age-associated degenerative diseases. That’s a pretty big deal. But the New Paradigm offers much more.
We have observed that the physiological structures that are known to support the maintenance system (the primary one being the endocrine system) are far more intricate in humans than in any other species, thus suggesting that the human maintenance system is far more capable than that of any other species. We have also observed that one of the functions of the human maintenance system is to maintain those structures, thus maintaining itself. The principles of natural selection predict that, like other species, the human maintenance system should be completely effective throughout the natural lifespan of the human species. For reasons discussed in our website, the natural lifespan of the human species would appear to be indefinite. The Institution isn’t suggesting that eradicating FDS will make humans immortal, because we’ll still be vulnerable to all of the non-age associated causes of death. But we are saying that eradicating FDS (by identifying and neutralizing the environmental factor that is interfering with the optimal functioning of our maintenance systems) will, in all likelihood, eliminate any age-mandated limitation on human longevity.
Finally, eradicating FDS would not just result in the eradication of the age-associated degenerative disorders, thus extending longevity. FDS encompasses all age-associated diminutions in functionality across all modalities. A corollary of the New Paradigm is that we are all genetically designed not just to survive, but to maintain optimal functionality, throughout our natural lifespans. If we can figure out how to neutralize the environmental agent that is disrupting our maintenance systems, there is no genetic reason why a 70-year old cannot function as well or better than he or she could as a 25-year old. We’re not just talking about extending lifespan. If we can harness the power inherent in our maintenance systems, we will have discovered the fountain of youth.