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Comment by macrolime | Hacker News Reader

Could be the reason is aging is programmed and when food is scarce the program changes to delay aging, such that the organism has a better chance to survive longer and reproduce once food is less scarce and at that point turn up the rate of aging again.

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That is almost how Hoeijmakers explains it, but not quite, see the link in my other comment for pointers.

He thinks aging is not programmed per se, but what is programmed is the switch of modes. Aging happens automatically as faults built up in dna over time. If an organism switches from "organism growth mode" to "repair dna mode", the chance of survival increases.

Now, how to conveniently trick the body into the latter mode is the million dollar question.

Or that extra foods puts more stress on your organs. Liver, kidneys, pancrease, etc have to do more work and for some reason the body isn't able to repair that and they wear out quicker.

Some googling suggests this is what causes type 2 diabetes. Pancreas wears out and stops producing insulin.

After chronic insulin resistance causes higher amounts of insulin to be generated for long periods of time

And that's why you shouldn't rely on Google for anything important. Type-2 diabetes has more to do with insulin resistance than lack of insulin production.

All tissue in organs are under stress and cells die of. That is normal, also for young people. The body produces new cell by making copies of dna.

What is problematic however is that after some time, there is a built up of errors in the dna. If those errors do not get corrected, that is when you see a decline in organ quality, what we call aging.

If interested, see my other posts for more pointers.

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