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Getting older

Contrary to popular myth, gay men get older too! Unless you’re flattened by a bus, most people live to their 80s, although a few of us thrive for more than 100 years. Several factors seem to make us grow old:

• Every time a cell divides (to replace those which have died) the blueprint for making them gets a little fuzzier introducing less precise copies. Consequently, more faulty cells are made.
• The body is gradually poisoned by a build-up of waste and toxins that it cannot process.
• There is a progressive decline in the immune system’s ability to detect and destroy micro-organisms and developing tumours.
• Diet, exercise and hereditary traits.

Put like this ageing doesn’t sound so great – it might even sound a little grim – but, eventually, that’s what bodies are designed to do. Nevertheless, with more of us living longer, more of us will still be here. Getting older is a fact of life and worrying about ageing just wastes time we could be living.

The science of ageing | AsapSCIENCE | 7 Mar 2013 | 2m 5s