Definition of Human Aging What are Causes and Stages of Aging?
Human aging is a universal phenomenon and process you can't avoid. It happens in stages. What causes aging? The build-up of physical and psychological changes in you over time leads to aging. Its definition simply means growing old.
These physical changes occur in the cells inside your human body and are manifested outside your body. The accumulation of aging took many years. Some noticeable physical signs of human aging are:
the graying of your hair
a diminished hearing or seeing human ability
the appearance of wrinkles and uneven skin tone on your face and hands.
There are also stages of aging inside your human body that are not seen by your eyes. But they make you aware that there is aging indeed, by the symptoms and signs your human body exhibits.
Considering the universality of the process of aging, some questions on how aging occurs in the cellular level remain unanswered.
Human aging involves decline in the cellular level and inflammation. According to most scientists, aging is caused by the interplay of many factors such as a somatic mutation in your genes and cellular retirement. Yes, your cells also retire.
How does aging become one of the leading causes of cancer disease? As you already know, the disease develops in and attacks your cells. And because you are only human, you grow older and the following changes which are not visible happen:
your ability to respond to stress decreases
your immune system weakens
your cells become unhealthy and sick.
What causes cellular aging? It is due to the damage you may have subjected your human body to over the years. Cellular damage may be caused by an unhealthy lifestyle which includes unhealthy eating habits, being overweight or obese and lack of physical activity.
The effects of these poor lifestyle habits add up as you grow old. And since you got a human body, your risk for getting such a life-threatening disease also increases.
And the older you are, the more susceptible you become to cancer. In fact, it is more common and more frequent among people who are 65 and above.
But there are also people who have reached the age of 85 without developing cancer. There are even people who live 100 years or more cancer-free!
Studies done on centenarians have shown the following factors contributed to their long life:
