Keeping up with the Red Queen: the pace of aging as an adaptation

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Authors

LENÁRT Peter BIENERTOVÁ VAŠKŮ Julie

Year of publication 2017
Type Article in Proceedings
Conference 10th European Congress of Biogerontology combined with the 6th Biogerontological Meeting - The Future of Ageing
MU Faculty or unit

Faculty of Medicine

Citation
Doi http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10522-016-9674-4
Field Physiology
Keywords Aging; Evolution; Programmed aging; Red Queen; Pace of aging; Aging as an adaptation
Description For decades, a vast majority of biogerontologists assumed that aging is not and cannot be an adaptation. In recent years, however, several authors opposed this predominant view and repeatedly suggested that not only is aging an adaptation but that it is the result of a specific aging program. This issue almost instantaneously became somewhat controversial and many important authors produced substantial works refuting the notion of the aging program. In this article we review the current state of the debate and list the most important arguments proposed by both sides. Furthermore, although classical interpretations of the evolution of aging are in sharp contrast with the idea of programmed aging, we suggest that the truth might in fact very well lie somewhere in between. We also propose our own interpretation which states that although aging is in essence inevitable and results from damage accumulation rather than from a specific program, the actual rate of aging in nature may still be adaptive to some extent.
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