AGING-A BIOLOGICAL EXPLANATION

Aging has lately been linked to mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) damage.

• Mitochondrial DNA provides energy to the cells; when damaged, they do not provide the energy they need to help you function properly and you get sick.
• Damaged mitochondrial DNA in genetic diseases is similar to damaged mitochondrial DNA seen in older humans, only the damage presents itself much sooner.
• Humans are programmed to overeat—to “store up for winter,” but by overeating, mtDNA produces oxygen radicals that damage our bodies.

Aging is definitely related to DNA [deoxyribonucleic acid] damage. But certainly, DNA damage, in and of itself, is not the whole answer.

The food that we eat is a source of our energy. Then, the air that we breathe is used to burn the food that we eat inside the mitochondria, and that is used to make heat and then energy to perform the work that we wish to do.

We eat fats and carbohydrates, specifically carbohydrates such as sugar. You can think of your mitochondria as little fireplaces; but instead of giving off light and heat, they are giving off heat plus they are trapping the light in the form of ATP [adenosine triphosphate], which is a small molecule that carries energy to the body to use for different things.

The mitochondria are unique because they have their own DNA (labeled mtDNA) and that DNA is the blueprint to determine how energy is generated and used. So, as we age in the process of making energy, the mitochondria also make oxygen radicals.Oxygen radicals over a long period of time can accumulate and ultimately kill off its agent —i.e. your body.

The mitochondrial DNA’s blueprints encode the wiring diagram for the electrical power of the house, and so if you disrupt the wiring diagram, then you don’t have the power. Then, you have the equivalent of a brownout inside the cell, which is what we call a mitochondrial genetic disease. All mitochondrial genetic diseases are energy-deficiency diseases, and they are commonly associated with things such as people feeling like they don’t have much energy; they have chronic pain; they have problems with seeing and their vision; they have problems with their heart; they have problems with their kidneys. All the kinds of tissues that need a lot of energy do not function well because the energy is not there.

The quantity of oxygen radicals produced by the body can be controlled by controlling the quantity of excess food intake .So a balanced diet with the requisite calorie intake can hold the key to make you look more like a teenager when u may actually be a septuagenarian.

So to keep your partner more intyerested in you and to maintain the glaze of your youth better watch out for the caloriemeter!!!!