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Why We Age: What Science Is Discovering about the Body's Journey Through Life
Why has the life span of the average American increased from 48 to 75 years in this century alone?
. . . If the body is a machine that simply wears out, why do some cells seem immortal?
. . . Is there an aging gene? And can we control it?
. . . Can antioxidants and hormone therapy actually slow the aging process and extend life?
Steven Austad s compelling book investigates the history, the theories, and the personalities behind the quest to understand the nature of aging. Here is hard evidence from the front lines of research that science is finally closing in on the fundamental processes of human biology and life.
"Austad s book can be read with pleasure and profit by any intelligent person with a smattering of biological knowledge." Science
"In this clear, engrossing overview, Austad takes the sting out of a subject that will ultimately capture us all." Publishers Weekly
"Why We Age is remarkably rigorous in its analysis and thorough scope. . . . A comprehensive examination of its topic." Science Editors, Amazon.com
"The problem with long life is that one keeps getting older; here s an able and clearly written summary of the latest theories on why we age and what might be done to ameliorate the process." Kirkus Reviews
. . . If the body is a machine that simply wears out, why do some cells seem immortal?
. . . Is there an aging gene? And can we control it?
. . . Can antioxidants and hormone therapy actually slow the aging process and extend life?
Steven Austad s compelling book investigates the history, the theories, and the personalities behind the quest to understand the nature of aging. Here is hard evidence from the front lines of research that science is finally closing in on the fundamental processes of human biology and life.
"Austad s book can be read with pleasure and profit by any intelligent person with a smattering of biological knowledge." Science
"In this clear, engrossing overview, Austad takes the sting out of a subject that will ultimately capture us all." Publishers Weekly
"Why We Age is remarkably rigorous in its analysis and thorough scope. . . . A comprehensive examination of its topic." Science Editors, Amazon.com
"The problem with long life is that one keeps getting older; here s an able and clearly written summary of the latest theories on why we age and what might be done to ameliorate the process." Kirkus Reviews
256 pages, Hardcover
First published May 23, 1997
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117 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 31, 2025
Taking into consideration that this was published nearly 30 years ago, it still holds valuable insight into the field of aging research today. Ideals in this book are sure to influence my own research directions and career trajectory. The perspective of Dr. Austad coming from the intersection of evolutionary biology and biomedicine is rather unique and inspiring.
July 11, 2019
Gives a persuasive answer to a difficult question
This interesting book is not about how to avoid ageing or about how to grow old gracefully, etc. Instead Austad is concerned quite simply, as his title says, in why we age.
The argument that he develops from evolutionary biology is very subtle, but persuasive and profound. It's not that the ageing of individuals is good for the species. That's a fallacy, although it works that way. And it is not because of limited cell division. That too is an effect. Rather it is because evolution does not support system maintenance past the age of reproduction. In other words (this is a slippery, but nonetheless cogent and persuasive argument) no gene that either maintains the system or tears down the system or even just leaves the system as it is past reproductive age is selected. None are selected. All post-reproductive age mechanisms are instead randomly selected; that is, selected by accident. Since there is the second law of thermodynamics, or entropy, a random system will just run down. It will go to chaos; and for our bodies, that means breakdown. Simple as that.
Still, the question remains, why don't we continue to reproduce as we grow older? Or, why isn't our reproductive age unlimited? The answer is subtle: such a system wouldn't work because it would be static and couldn't change with the environment. The old reproducers would, through the strength of their experience and position, control reproduction and naturally work against change. Consequently, they would drift away from their changing environment and become less fit. Also, the faster an environment changes the faster the species must adjust; therefore, reproduction at an earlier and earlier age would be selected for, consistent with the ability to gain subsistence. As is noted here and elsewhere, it is a melancholy fact that we age and die because of sexuality. Sexual reproduction only works if the young have a better chance at reproducing than the old. It should be realized that someone a generation younger is, paradoxically, a generation older in terms of genetic experience. The gene pool has mixed one more time. The young can only have the advantage if the experienced and powerful get old, weak and die. And so we do.
--Dennis Littrell, author of the mystery novel, “Teddy and Teri”
This interesting book is not about how to avoid ageing or about how to grow old gracefully, etc. Instead Austad is concerned quite simply, as his title says, in why we age.
The argument that he develops from evolutionary biology is very subtle, but persuasive and profound. It's not that the ageing of individuals is good for the species. That's a fallacy, although it works that way. And it is not because of limited cell division. That too is an effect. Rather it is because evolution does not support system maintenance past the age of reproduction. In other words (this is a slippery, but nonetheless cogent and persuasive argument) no gene that either maintains the system or tears down the system or even just leaves the system as it is past reproductive age is selected. None are selected. All post-reproductive age mechanisms are instead randomly selected; that is, selected by accident. Since there is the second law of thermodynamics, or entropy, a random system will just run down. It will go to chaos; and for our bodies, that means breakdown. Simple as that.
Still, the question remains, why don't we continue to reproduce as we grow older? Or, why isn't our reproductive age unlimited? The answer is subtle: such a system wouldn't work because it would be static and couldn't change with the environment. The old reproducers would, through the strength of their experience and position, control reproduction and naturally work against change. Consequently, they would drift away from their changing environment and become less fit. Also, the faster an environment changes the faster the species must adjust; therefore, reproduction at an earlier and earlier age would be selected for, consistent with the ability to gain subsistence. As is noted here and elsewhere, it is a melancholy fact that we age and die because of sexuality. Sexual reproduction only works if the young have a better chance at reproducing than the old. It should be realized that someone a generation younger is, paradoxically, a generation older in terms of genetic experience. The gene pool has mixed one more time. The young can only have the advantage if the experienced and powerful get old, weak and die. And so we do.
--Dennis Littrell, author of the mystery novel, “Teddy and Teri”
September 10, 2014
Why We Age – Steven N. Austad
Why We Age - Before I started reading this book I wasn't sure if the title was a question or a statement. I thought it might answer some questions or provide some insight, lending the title toward a statement, but no. After reading halfway through the book, I'm still wasn't sure what it was. Some nicely structured entertaining stories, but I was left without any feeling of insight.
Needless to say, the first half of this book was unexceptional; I wish someone would’ve said, “Hey, skip to the second half and you’ll be amazed.” The book has a terrific balance of facts and anecdotes to keep it interesting. The author knows that our scientific evidence is still severely lacking. He tackles the major theories of aging and works both sides of the debates, giving us a fairly balanced report of the optimistic points and the drawbacks. We can’t control aging just yet and I suspect it won’t happen for a good many years or perhaps never. Some nice stories accompany the theories and it’s mostly anecdotal; there are no concrete ideas on increasing longevity. I don't blame the author, the evidence is what it is - we can't push past what we don't know and right now we just don't know - despite what some 'Experts' tell us.
One note, he talks about ‘good nutrition’ when I suspect he means an abundance of calories, not necessarily quality healthy calories. The section on breast cancer is enlightening and well argued. Our modern women live in an estrogen soaked environment for much longer than they used to, which seems to have a direct correlation to breast cancer rates.
P 17 If there is a secret to achieving a life of 100 years or longer, we have now discovered what it is. You simply need the good fortune to be born into a nonliterate culture, or one with sloppy record keeping, or one such as ours of exceptional gullibility.
P 25 This consistent relationship between literacy and long life is not necessarily due to conscious fraud. It’s just that, in the absence of knowledge, people exaggerate.
P65 Muscles grow weaker as we age not because muscle cells no longer divide. They don’t divide after being fully formed during development, anyway. (Musle size increases with resistance exercise because individual cells increase in size, not because new cells are produced.)
P160 There has been a great deal of publicity surrounding the fact that breast-cancer rates have been increasing in the United States by about 1 percent a year for half a century. This trend has been attributed to nearly every aspect of modern life that someone dislikes – chemical pollution, eating too much fatty food, drinking too much alchol, birth-control pills, electromagnetic radiation – everything but UFOs, fluoridated water, and obnoxious talk-show hosts. But despite a great deal of research, little hard evidence has surfaced to implicate any of these things. A different, perhaps more reasonable, notion is that increasing breast-cancer rates are due to otherwise beneficial aspects of modern life, such as good nutrition, the reduced necessity for back-breaking physical labor, increasing health consciousness, and the ability to manage one’s own life course.
Why do I say this? Good nutrition and reduced physical labor together increase the occurrence of breast cancer by lowering the age at puberty and increasing the age at menopause. European and North American girls now undergo puberty about four years earlier than girls did just 150 years ago, and the link among nutrition, work and the age at puberty is well established. Women require a certain amount of body fat before puberty will occur. It is no mystery that eating well and not exercising too much will increase body fat.
P161 These same factors – nutrition and physical work (that is, exercise) – probably explain at least some of the international differences in breast-cancer rates, as well. China, for instance, has about one quarter the incidence of breast cancer as the United States, and not coincidentally Chinese women reach puberty more than four years later than do women in the United States.
P164 So delaying pregnancy, something associated with women’s control over their own reproductive lives and also associated with higher socioeconomic status, increases the probability of developing breast cancer, as do good nutrition and a sedentary lifestyle.
P166 Welcome to the hocus-pocus world of risk-factor epidemiology – the statistical study of the causes of noninfectious diseases such as cancer and heart disease.
P182 Let me emphasize one thing clearly at the outset so that whatever I may say later will not be misunderstood. There are currently no diets, no vitamin or mineral or hormone supplements, no attitudes, and no behaviors or lifestyle choices that have been demonstrated to slow aging in humans.
P183 There is no controversy at all about the fact that restricting the amount of food eaten by laboratory rodents slows their aging rate. In fact, food restriction is the only proven method or reliably slowing aging in laboratory rodents. No one – repeat, no one – knows why food restriction has this effect or how it works. Also, no one knows whether it will have a similar effect in humans.
P196 We as a species seem to have very little control over our eating habits or the weight-loss industry would not be such a spectacular perennial moneymaker. For all the well-known and widely advertised adverse effects of obesity on health, humans in countries where high-fat food is freely available continue to fatten like feed-lot beef.
P199 But one reason to suspect that humans and laboratory rats respond rather similarly to exercise is that humans also seem to have slightly longer lives, on average, if they exercise in the proper way, though aging remains unaffected. In other words, as in rats, there is no evidence that exercise has anything to do with living an extremely long life. The ranks of centenarians are not dominated by former Olympic swimmers or marathon runners – the reverse may even be true.
P203 Let’s start with what we know for sure. Dozens of epidemiological studies agree that a diet rich in fruits and vegetables and low in animal fat is correlated with modestly reduced incidences of cancer and heart disease, which, over a lifetime, should lead to small increases in average longevity.
P204 So trying to generalize from rodents to humans about specific nutrients is a fool’s errand.
P212 The take-home message about antioxidant vitamins is depressingly trite. Your mother (and more amazingly, the FDA) seem to be right. Eat lots of fruit and vegetables and lower your fat intake, and you can’t go wrong. It won’t slow aging, but it will reduce your risk of specific important mid- and late-life diseases. Too little of virtually any vitamin, including these antioxidants, is not good for you. On the other hand, regular use of vitamin pills containing vastly more than the recommended daily allowances is not likely to compensate for a poor diet or other bad health habits, and may even do you harm.
www.veggierunner.com
Why We Age - Before I started reading this book I wasn't sure if the title was a question or a statement. I thought it might answer some questions or provide some insight, lending the title toward a statement, but no. After reading halfway through the book, I'm still wasn't sure what it was. Some nicely structured entertaining stories, but I was left without any feeling of insight.
Needless to say, the first half of this book was unexceptional; I wish someone would’ve said, “Hey, skip to the second half and you’ll be amazed.” The book has a terrific balance of facts and anecdotes to keep it interesting. The author knows that our scientific evidence is still severely lacking. He tackles the major theories of aging and works both sides of the debates, giving us a fairly balanced report of the optimistic points and the drawbacks. We can’t control aging just yet and I suspect it won’t happen for a good many years or perhaps never. Some nice stories accompany the theories and it’s mostly anecdotal; there are no concrete ideas on increasing longevity. I don't blame the author, the evidence is what it is - we can't push past what we don't know and right now we just don't know - despite what some 'Experts' tell us.
One note, he talks about ‘good nutrition’ when I suspect he means an abundance of calories, not necessarily quality healthy calories. The section on breast cancer is enlightening and well argued. Our modern women live in an estrogen soaked environment for much longer than they used to, which seems to have a direct correlation to breast cancer rates.
P 17 If there is a secret to achieving a life of 100 years or longer, we have now discovered what it is. You simply need the good fortune to be born into a nonliterate culture, or one with sloppy record keeping, or one such as ours of exceptional gullibility.
P 25 This consistent relationship between literacy and long life is not necessarily due to conscious fraud. It’s just that, in the absence of knowledge, people exaggerate.
P65 Muscles grow weaker as we age not because muscle cells no longer divide. They don’t divide after being fully formed during development, anyway. (Musle size increases with resistance exercise because individual cells increase in size, not because new cells are produced.)
P160 There has been a great deal of publicity surrounding the fact that breast-cancer rates have been increasing in the United States by about 1 percent a year for half a century. This trend has been attributed to nearly every aspect of modern life that someone dislikes – chemical pollution, eating too much fatty food, drinking too much alchol, birth-control pills, electromagnetic radiation – everything but UFOs, fluoridated water, and obnoxious talk-show hosts. But despite a great deal of research, little hard evidence has surfaced to implicate any of these things. A different, perhaps more reasonable, notion is that increasing breast-cancer rates are due to otherwise beneficial aspects of modern life, such as good nutrition, the reduced necessity for back-breaking physical labor, increasing health consciousness, and the ability to manage one’s own life course.
Why do I say this? Good nutrition and reduced physical labor together increase the occurrence of breast cancer by lowering the age at puberty and increasing the age at menopause. European and North American girls now undergo puberty about four years earlier than girls did just 150 years ago, and the link among nutrition, work and the age at puberty is well established. Women require a certain amount of body fat before puberty will occur. It is no mystery that eating well and not exercising too much will increase body fat.
P161 These same factors – nutrition and physical work (that is, exercise) – probably explain at least some of the international differences in breast-cancer rates, as well. China, for instance, has about one quarter the incidence of breast cancer as the United States, and not coincidentally Chinese women reach puberty more than four years later than do women in the United States.
P164 So delaying pregnancy, something associated with women’s control over their own reproductive lives and also associated with higher socioeconomic status, increases the probability of developing breast cancer, as do good nutrition and a sedentary lifestyle.
P166 Welcome to the hocus-pocus world of risk-factor epidemiology – the statistical study of the causes of noninfectious diseases such as cancer and heart disease.
P182 Let me emphasize one thing clearly at the outset so that whatever I may say later will not be misunderstood. There are currently no diets, no vitamin or mineral or hormone supplements, no attitudes, and no behaviors or lifestyle choices that have been demonstrated to slow aging in humans.
P183 There is no controversy at all about the fact that restricting the amount of food eaten by laboratory rodents slows their aging rate. In fact, food restriction is the only proven method or reliably slowing aging in laboratory rodents. No one – repeat, no one – knows why food restriction has this effect or how it works. Also, no one knows whether it will have a similar effect in humans.
P196 We as a species seem to have very little control over our eating habits or the weight-loss industry would not be such a spectacular perennial moneymaker. For all the well-known and widely advertised adverse effects of obesity on health, humans in countries where high-fat food is freely available continue to fatten like feed-lot beef.
P199 But one reason to suspect that humans and laboratory rats respond rather similarly to exercise is that humans also seem to have slightly longer lives, on average, if they exercise in the proper way, though aging remains unaffected. In other words, as in rats, there is no evidence that exercise has anything to do with living an extremely long life. The ranks of centenarians are not dominated by former Olympic swimmers or marathon runners – the reverse may even be true.
P203 Let’s start with what we know for sure. Dozens of epidemiological studies agree that a diet rich in fruits and vegetables and low in animal fat is correlated with modestly reduced incidences of cancer and heart disease, which, over a lifetime, should lead to small increases in average longevity.
P204 So trying to generalize from rodents to humans about specific nutrients is a fool’s errand.
P212 The take-home message about antioxidant vitamins is depressingly trite. Your mother (and more amazingly, the FDA) seem to be right. Eat lots of fruit and vegetables and lower your fat intake, and you can’t go wrong. It won’t slow aging, but it will reduce your risk of specific important mid- and late-life diseases. Too little of virtually any vitamin, including these antioxidants, is not good for you. On the other hand, regular use of vitamin pills containing vastly more than the recommended daily allowances is not likely to compensate for a poor diet or other bad health habits, and may even do you harm.
www.veggierunner.com
August 8, 2011
This book just wasn't that informative. There's a few interesting tidbits in there, but not really worth the read.
October 18, 2025
Depressing and relieving, the exact balance depending on the reader.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews