INVECCHIAMENTO E LONGEVITÀ

Descrizione

I am honored to be given this opportunity by Professor Marigliano to introduce this important book on human aging. In its extreme manifestations, aging occurs only in humans or in the animals that we choose to protect. Humans have learned how to eliminate most causes of youthful deaths, allowing most citizens to live long enough to experience aging, a phenomenon that, teologically, was never intended to be seen. Aging, therefore, is an aberration of civilization. Like prehistoric humans, where remains of old members rarely have been found, feral animals do not live long enough to age because, after reproductive success, they incur physiological losses that increase their vulnerability to predation, disease or accidents before significant age chanes can occur. When old feral animals are found, juman disturbance of their ecological niche is often the cause. Because we have learned how to prevent most early deaths, aging is occurring today on a scale never before experienced by jumans. Not only are the numbers of older people increasing in developed countries but life expectation at almost every age is advancing.