Typically, we look at some important system in the body and examine the effects of stress or stress response. In this section, we are going to take a look at the big picture and deal with the whole body but from the point of view of examining the effects of stress on the aging process. Two obvious questions arise:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u2022 Does stress or the body’s stress response accelerate the aging process?
\n\u2022 How does an older individual deal with stress?<\/p>\n
Intuitively, the answer to the first question seems to be that stress does accelerate the aging process. We can all imagine scenarios where the body is stressed repeatedly and tries valiantly to fight off these stressors and fatigues from the effort. Net result: accelerated aging and a body suffering from various diseases as a result of the stress or the stress response.<\/p>\n
The second question also seems to have an intuitive answer: we all know from experience that older people seem to slow down physically and mentally. It seems simple to assume that the older person is not in a position to deal effectively with stress.<\/p>\n
Gerontologists\u2014those studying the aging process\u2014find that most of us will age gracefully and with a fair degree of success. We may be so lucky as to be surrounded by our children and grandchildren whose health and vitality will give us a sense of immortality. Nevertheless, there are so many disastrous possibilities\u2014wracking pain, dementia and a loss of control so severe that we cannot recognize our loved ones, muscles that do not respond to our will, ignored by our children and, worse, ill-treated by them, forced hospitalization and, worst of all, that aching sense that we are a burden to one and all. With such diverse possibilities, it is logical that many scientists are studying the aging process and how to avoid some of the worst outcomes.<\/p>\n
One of the interesting things to note is that many studies of the aging process have to be carried out on laboratory animals with short life span or on primates in the wild. The difficulty in studying old people is that it is not often clear whether you are studying aging or the effects of some other disease that afflicts the person. Moreover, after a lifetime, many older people are on multiple medications (with their associated side-effects) and that increases the complexity of the studies.<\/p>\n
Laboratory animals with short life spans provide better models for study. Unfortunately, the study of aging in say, flies or mice, cannot reveal to us interesting results in terms of human aging (hard to study the psychological or emotional aspects of flies!).<\/p>\n
The best subjects are the primates (our close relatives from the evolutionary point of view). An old animal in the wild is supremely healthy\u2014were it not, it would have been eaten a long time back. The studies on various aspects of the aging process in primates reveal a lot of interesting aspects and we will take a look at some of them in the subsequent sections.<\/p>\n
From an evolutionary perspective, the problems with really aged organisms are relatively recent. Even today, the majority of the world population has a life span that does not leave many people in the very aged categories. The problems of aging appear in the affluent Western nations and the pockets of people who are categorized as upper income in other countries. A long life is still a luxury and not a basic fact of human life. No wonder that one of the most common forms of blessing is ‘Live to be a centenarian!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"