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This book provides concrete scientific basis that we can conceive the possibility of modifying or even completely canceling aging process, despite the fact that aging is commonly regarded as the result of the overall effects of many uncontrollable degenerative phenomena. The authors illustrate in detail the mechanisms by which cells and the whole organism age. Actions by which it is possible, or will be possible within a limited time, to operate for modifying aging are also debated.
The discussion is conducted within the frame and the concepts of evolutionary medicine, which is also indispensable for distinguishing between the manifestations of aging and: (i) diseases that worsen with age, and (ii) acceleration of normal aging rates, caused by unhealthy lifestyle habits and other avoidable factors. The book also discusses the impact of aging on overall mortality and the strange situation that, according to official statistics, aging does not exist as cause of death.
This book is a turning point between a gerontology and geriatrics conceived as the study and vain treatment of an incurable condition and one in which these disciplines examine the how and why of a physiological phenomenon that can be modified up to a possible total control. This means transforming the medical prevention and treatment of physiological aging from the greatest failure to the greatest success of medicine.
List of contents
Presentation.- Terminology.- Chapter 1. Introduction.- Chapter 2. Evolution and phenoptosis.- Chapter 3. Evolutionary medicine.- Chapter 4. The comparison between the two paradigms.- Chapter 5. Subtelomere-Telomere aging theory.- Chapter 6. Aging in the human species.- Chapter 7. The elderly subjects and their troubles.- Chapter 8. Prevention and treatment of the troubles of the elderly.- Appendix.
About the author
Giacinto Libertini, MD, is Independent Researcher and Member of the Italian Society for Evolutionary Biology. He was the first to formulate some basic concepts of evolutionary medicine and to propose the theory of aging as an adaptive phenomenon favored by natural selection in terms of kin selection. He has also extended and deepened the concept of phenoptosis proposed by Vladimir Skulachev.
Graziamaria Corbi, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine and Geriatrics at the University of Molise, Campobasso, Italy. She has contributed to over 120 publications covering internal medicine, geriatrics, cardiology, clinical pharmacology and public health.
Valeria Conti, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Salerno, Italy. She is a brilliant young researcher with over sixty publications in the fields of clinical pharmacology, cardiology and geriatrics.
Olga Shubernetskaya, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Shemyakin-Ovchinnikov Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Moscow, Russia. She is a very promising and innovative scholar of telomere and telomerase biology.
Nicola Ferrara, PhD, is Professor of the Department of Translational Medical Sciences, Federico II Univ. of Naples, Italy, Dean of the Specialization School in Gerontology and Geriatrics, and former President of the Italian Society of Gerontology and Geriatrics. He has contributed to about 350 works in many fields including mainly cardiology, geriatrics, and biogerontology.
