“We are generally familiar with two kinds of lifespans. The
lifespan is short, but we talk about average lifespans in the population. Right now, for example, in Denmark there is average life expectancy of about 80-85 years. This is very important to know, because this is the data which is the basis of deciding many social decisions – what should be the retirement age? What are the future perspectives? Then we also know about maximum lifespan – and the human record so far is 122 years, which was set in 1997.” Dr Rattan refers, also, to an “essential
lifespan” – a period of time during which humans carry out their intended functions, after which ageing begins. This watershed generally occurs between the ages of 40 and 45, and with increasing numbers of people living well beyond that age Dr Rattan is concerned with improving life conditions in this period. “There is a third kind of lifespan – how much
through our biomedical achievements, we can expect to live double or triple that lifespan. That is the start of biogerontological research - why our lifespan is so short, and when does ageing happen? So, beyond the age of 40 and 45, that is when in biological terms we say ageing starts.
“Genes contribute about 25 per cent to our
“Stress of choice can be a very
powerful strategy to achieve
healthy ageing and have a
lifespan should be there, from nature’s point of view, from evolution’s point of view, and that is the question of the purpose of life. The purpose of life is what Darwinian theory tells us ¬- reproduction and continuation of generations, so that lifespan is called essential lifespan. In the case of human beings, it’s generally not more than 40-45 years. This is what nature wants us for – to continue Homo sapiens. What happens after that is not
evolution’s concern,
and that is a very important issue, because through our
Exercise is a physical hormetin that causes stress and damage in the body, and you are able to get benefits after the exercise.
own success,
better quality of life”
ageing and lifespan. That means that 75 per cent of the lifespan is determined by our lifestyle. 75 per cent will come from nutrition and physical activity, level of education, social network, and how you look at your own health.” While ageing is inevitable, and we are able
to understand the process by which the body and mind age, it is a process unique to the individual, and Dr Rattan explains that this makes a ‘solution to ageing’ a more problematic undertaking for researchers. “In the last 50 years, people like us, in our
labs in Aarhus, have described what happens when individuals become old, when the systems in the body become old, when cells become old, when even the molecules become old - DNA, RNA, protein. What we know from
all this research is that everything in the body ages at the biological level – if we want to talk about improving with age that’s a sociological and psychological issue, that yes we need to celebrate ageing and respect old age, but we need to accept the fact that biologically everything changes towards dysfunction. Everything ages, but no two people become old in the same way; no two parts in the body become old in the same way. There is not a simple solution to the problem of ageing because everything ages differently, and that makes life more challenging for researchers,
but also gives more possibilities of intervention. “A very important question in the field of ageing research is ‘are
we programmed to age?’ Are there any timers, clocks or genes that are there with the purpose of killing us, of making us old? People used to think that just like everything else in the body is controlled by genes, our old age and death is also controlled, but the last 20-30 years of research shows there are no genes that evolution has made with the purpose of killing; evolution works on life processes, and this is good news because there is no mechanism that is trying to kill you. But the fact is that we become old and we will die, and that is what opens up the possibility of doing something about it.” Dr Rattan defines a homeodynamic space – our ability to live and
survive, with ageing described as the shrinking of this space. The essential building blocks for life are also the primary causes of malfunction in the human body. “Genes affect our quality of life, our basic survival, our basic
biochemistry, whether we get diseases; but genes don’t determine how long I will live. But to understand why I age and die, we have to understand why we live. And life is a paradox in itself. The three things that are the basis of life – oxygen, food, basic biochemistry, that is exactly what causes all the problems in the body. “But in the body, we have very complex processes of maintenance
and repair, the biological defences – right from the level of DNA maintenance, which is the fundamental survival molecule, to proteins, antioxidants, cells, tissues, thermoregulation. These are all mechanisms which protect the cells and body. If they are not working, we can’t live even for a second. This is the balance between these two things that we call a kind of survival ability. We call it homeodynamic space.
84 Insight Publishers | Projects
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