What is the biological cause of aging?

I wrote a Quora answer to this question. I like it so much that I am posting it here for you to read-

Aging is a survival advantage. Getting old was one of the strategies used by early life in order to defeat those who did not get old in the race of evolution!

Unbelievable, I know!

How can the strategy of getting old give survival advantage to an organism over its peer?

1. Some biologists think that aging benefits specie by checking over-population.
2. Others think that getting old is an altruistic feature which gives younger animals opportunity to reproduce.

I think that both these theories are wrong as far as humanity is concerned.

In human history, cannibalism has existed. Human murder each other, selfishly even today for small reasons like resources, space, prestige, sexual opportunity and self defense etc. How can we explain the existence of altruism along with cannibalism? How can a an organism get old as an act of altruism while at the same time murder its peer for resources?

Altruism and inter-specie violence cannot go hand in hand. Yes, there exist animals that are altruist. Human being is not. We are altruistic at the family level, but other than this, it is a dog-eats-dog world.

As far as giving younger animals chance to reproduce, older ones do not need to make themselves old for this. They will die all the same, due to accidents. The probability that a child will live at least 20 years is higher than the probability that it will live till at least 40 years. This explains everything. Chances are that the younger organism will live to see the older one die. So, no altruism required here as well.

So, if these theories are wrong, what is the right theory?

My theory is based upon Life History Theory. According to LHT-

1. Resources available to any organism are limited,
2. To sustain life, all organisms bear some life processes like Repair and maintenance of the body, Reproduction, Intellectual work, Maintaining body and muscular mass, learning survival skills etc. All these processes consume resources, and are hence costly to bear,
3. In order to fulfill certain life processes, resources must be directed towards them. Any resource directed towards any life process will have to be directed away from all the other life processes, hence creating a competition for resources among the life processes. So, an internal trade-off mechanism of resources between different life processes must exist.

Such trade off has been confirmed experimentally in many dietary restriction experiments.

Now, why do we get old?

My assertion: Because we trade-off our youth by compromising repair and maintenance of our body in order to gain some extra reproductive success!

Explanation: Our body has to bear continuous damages from radiation, chemicals, pathogens and physical injuries. According to a mainstream biological theory of aging, we get old because we are unable to repair and maintain these constantly occurring damages in our body with 100% efficiency.

Why is that?

Because even if we do not get old, we will die all the same. Accidents happen, and they happened more when the early man lived in jungle. Imagine getting eaten by animals, getting bitten by thousands of insects you have never seen and snakes, getting injured in foot and becoming easy prey etc. We are going to die. That is certain. So why should we invest our energy in repairing and maintaining our body, when the same energy can be directed towards sexuality to gain extra reproductive success! Why should we not compromise our repair and maintenance process from 100% to 90% efficiency, so that the 10% energy gain gives us more children and an obvious evolutionary benefit over our non-aging peers (morons)??? There is no need to maintain a system which will die all the same. A calculated rate of aging, depending upon the mortality rate of a non-aging specie will a better life strategy.

Think like a mathematician, like a game theorist. Do I not make sense?

My theory beautifully explains why we get old. I actually wrote a popular science book on this topic- Modern Biological Theory and Experiments on Celibacy: Brahmacharya under Microscope - Jatin Shankar - Amazon.com

The Idea behind the book is that if we restrain our sexuality, our repair and maintenance process can become 100%. Do you know what that means? We will not get old!!!

BOOK:

Modern Biological theory and experiments on Celibacy:

Brahmacharya under microscope

Book description:

Did you know that it has been shown in hundreds of Biology experiments that the rate of reproduction in an animal directly depends upon its rate of aging? If we increase the rate of reproduction, the rate of aging also increases! 

Did you know that there exist experiments done on male primates proving that ejaculate is costly for them in significant way, in the form of energy? 

Did you know that if a lactating female lacks some nutrients in her diet; her body erodes itself to enrich her milk so that the offspring does not have to suffer? 

But the theory of Celibacy is not so simple. For example, ‘controlling’ your sexual impulse because it ‘wastes’ energy and that the same energy will make you a ‘better’ person is not what this book proposes. Such logic has holes in it. Serious holes! 

For example, suppose a man loses some vital nutrients during ejaculations. The man can easily restore the loss by eating few supplements! It is as simple as that! Why take the pains to practice celibacy? 

At this point, all debates stop! The supporters of celibacy close their ears and pretend as if they heard nothing and those who attack the concept stare at the supporters with sympathy and irritation! 

But one question remains- How to explain the experimental data that shows direct relationship between rate of aging and reproduction? 

It is all chaos now, and nothing makes sense! Let’s make it more chaotic- 

Do you know what happens when we increase the food supplies of a ‘well fed’ mouse? Its rate of aging remains almost constant while its rate of reproduction increases with the feeding. So no aging benefit of ‘extra food’ on a mouse! But do you know what happens when we ‘decrease’ the food supplies? The animal starts aging much ‘slower’! Yes, you read it correctly! The lifespan of the mouse ‘increases’ and its rate of reproduction decreases drastically! 

So what will happen if a person eats supplements to restore the nutrients lost during sex? What do you think the answer is? Why do you think the answer is this? Don’t you think that this is paradoxical and damn interesting? Don’t you think that to understand the true mysteries of celibacy, we must approach it in a scientific attitude, with commitment to study and do experiments and arrive at conclusions, whatever they may be, and to not let go of a lose unexplained string or any unnecessary extra piece in this jigsaw puzzle. Everything must fit in. If one piece does not fit, every piece must be taken down… 

It is in spirit of true scientific attitude that life can be understood and philosophical regime can be explored. Without scientific experiments, philosophy is like a baseless palace… 

This book is divided into 3 parts. The first part discusses several experiments and their data only, without explaining them. I have fully cited every experiment in case you are interested in any of them and want to read the full text paper. 

The second part of this book contains an introduction to modern biological understanding of the experiments. It is here that we will be studying the implications of these theories on the philosophy of Celibacy and try solving all the paradoxes to construct a complete theory of Celibacy. 

The third part of this book deals with few philosophical matter following Celibacy- questioning its necessities and implications on psychology of a person and society. 

I have used graphs and table to explain difficult results of many of the experiments and theory to make the concept easier and intuitive for you to understand. 

Few curious people may wonder- if we already have the experimental evidence that reducing rate of reproduction slows the rate of aging of an organism, can celibacy stop it? 

Well, you have asked a very important question indeed. Yes, after thinking about this in a scientific way, I do believe that celibacy, it its true form, STOPS AGING! And I have strong reasons for what I say, based on firm theoretical arguments and solid experimental data. 

Check out a FREE sample of this book here!

Book Review

Book name: Modern Biological theory and experiments on Celibacy: Brahmacharya under microscope

Hello,

This book is for anyone who has ever desired to understand the science behind the philosophy of celibacy before believing in it...

First, let me introduce myself. I am Jatin Shankar, an Indian College Student interested in Physics and mathematics. But the Physics and math comes after life, and I want to understand life. For this reason, I like studying biolofical research papers in my free time.

I got interested in Celibacy when I discovered that our Biological understanding of world was pointing towards it!

I have written a book on this topic. Hope you will find it interesting...!

You can read my book at amazon!

Read a free preview in pdf here!