3. Programmed theories

Two researchers at MIT, Drs. David Sinclair and Leonard Guarente believe they have discovered the "Holy Grail" of aging, the senescent factor (SF), which may be the underlying cause of why our billions of cells stop dividing and thus age. SF is believed to be the genetically regulated internal biological clock that is preset to a certain number of cell divisions before the cell dies.

Believe it or not, it may all be a big mistake. These two scientists think that bits of extra DNA – deoxyribonucleic acid, the building blocks of life – accumulate within our cells’ nuclei, and that this "junk" DNA builds up to levels that clog normal cell action.

Our mothers have been telling us that junk food is bad for us, now junk DNA may be, too! Actually, what Drs. Sinclair and Guarente published in the prestigious journal, Cell, was about brewer’s yeast cells; however, they believe that this buildup of junk DNA from too many repeats of our ribosomes – protein producing factories inside a cell’s nucleus – is what also causes Werner’s syndrome in humans, which is a fatal disease of premature aging.
Persons afflicted with Werner’s syndrome are normal until they become teenagers, then they start developing signs of accelerated aging like very wrinkled skin and die in their 30s. If the Cell paper’s conclusion is correct, then knowing what the SF is may lead scientists to find ways to slow down the mechanism of cellular senescence, or aging.