Monday, April 7, 2014

Why do we Age?


Growing old really frightens me. I am not the type of person who likes to talk about ageing, because all I associate ageing with is death. Seeing my parents’ age is what scares me the most. I found this week’s article to be very interesting. This article discusses ageing in an evolutionary way, as in reproduction. In this article ageing is not looked upon as a negative thing but as an evolutionary process, and has gotten me to somewhat look at it as this process. Our main purpose on this Earth is to reproduce, and after that stage we start to age and deteriorate. Ageing starts when we have completed our goal of evolution which is producing an offspring that is fit for the environment.
I have also come to understand that menopause in women is not the end of the world as most people make it seem. It is just another stage in the evolutionary process. A stage where women reach after they have completed their goal.

1 comment:

  1. I too do not like to talk about aging. There are many things in life that I would prefer not to happen to me, and aging and having children are among them. My parents have aged extremely well in both appearance and health so I am not too worried about them yet. In the article for this week the section on caloric intake in rats intrigued me. It makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint that if one cannot allocate resources to reproduction that aging might occur at a slower rate for an increased chance of producing offspring later on. I wonder if anything like that occurs in humans although probably not in the United States because we tend to have more calories than we know what to do with. I agree with your point on women and menopause. Through the article’s evolutionary filter it makes sense that women start menopause after their reproductive stage because they have fulfilled their goal. Resources can be allocated to other things rather than menstruating to live post reproductive stage to raise children and contribute to grandchildren. For my own selfish reasons I am going with the strategy of not having kids and living a long life, putting off aging and deterioration as long as possible!

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