Age-Distorters: When Viruses and Parasites Hack the Aging Process
The age-distorter hypothesis suggests that other species can hijack aging pathways for their benefit
Whence aging?
Aging is inevitable.
At least for humans.
At least for now.
Even though some organisms buck the trend (see the fish that refuses to age, for example), most complex multicellular animals age.
There are many ideas about why this happens, but they can be roughly grouped into two categories: damage-related and programmed factors.
Damage-related hypotheses focus on the accrual of damage over the lifespan: DNA damage, oxidative stress, and so on. Eventually, our physiology fails to keep up with the maintenance and repair, and the cascade of aging begins.
Programmed factor hypotheses revolve around more intrinsic factors, perhaps even a genetic program that has been selected. Think telomere shortening, changes in hormone signaling, epigenetics, and so on.
These categories are not mutually exclusive. Programmed factors can affect repair mechanisms, which allows damage to take hold, for example. Most people (including several researchers) want a single…
