Everybody wants to live longer, but no one wants to be or look old. That is the phenomenon that happened in this time. All kinds of way of are conducted, the rational ones and even the illogical ones to cover the signs of being old.



What is Old?

Being old or commonly now called as aging is a natural and fair process, signed by decrease of biological function and by lowerance of fertility and also by the increase of mortality along with age accretion. Aging process started from sexual maturation and continued to the moment when it reaches the maximum age limit (longevity/life span). Death represents the last event from aging process.

We can also say that aging is the decrease of function and performance of organ system of the human body which cause the decreasing capacities of body reserve so that finally cause the death.

It is difficult to differentiate whether aging process is a kind of disease or a biological symptom. In other word, is it primary (problem that is caused by itself) or secondary (effect of or related to other process).

From biological angle aging represents the universal rule that happened to all kinds of creatures. Every creature becomes old until the death time comes. If someone is getting older and older, he/she becomes easily suffer from diseases and organ failure. So, to stop aging process, people have to be able to discontinue the body from susceptibility to disease and discontinue the deterioration of organ failure.

Aging indicators.

There are some indicators or biomarkers of aging. These indicators are not only valued by the physical or external appearance such as grey hair, decreasing memory (dementia), or susceptibility to disease. They are also indicated by biochemical and cellular process.If end part of chromosome polymer is becoming shorter and shorter, and the replication of chromosome is not continued, it means the aging process has already happened.

Process that happened when someone becomes old

There are some theories related to aging process. From all of them, theory of free radical is the main and most logical theory that can explain aging, if aging is related to functional and structural change that happened as being old implication.

Free radical theory says that the signs of aging process all over the body including the brain are most caused by cell damage that happened because of free radical (unstable molecule reacting with the oxygen). Free radicals generate the oxidative damage to the cell. The oxidation process will destroy the mitochondrion, the energy factory in a cell. This problem becomes worse because mitochondrion expells more amount of free radical when it produces the energy. So, the cell damage becomes worse, and will express in many signs of aging.

Another theory says aging happened because of body protein damage.The damage occurred because the protein is chemically chained with sugar. The last theory is the theory of telomer curtailment. When a cell splits into two (reproducing), the telomer will not stop shortening, until one day it stops, the cell growth also desist