Why do we die?

Question

From the moment we are concieved we are a mass of growing cells. These cells renew as we age. Why does this process slow down? and when? why? how? does it eventually stop?

Answer 1

Telomeres is the answer.

As you stated, cells do renew themselves. Everytime they do this, they replicate the DNA within them. 'Mistakes' can creep in as they replicate. This can lead to defects as we age, however it is not thought to be the reason we die.

Basically it is thought that DNA strands have a kind of cap on the end of them, called telomeres. Each time the DNA replicates the telomeres shorten. When they become too short, the DNA can no longer replicate itself. When this happens, the cells obviously do not replicate themselves -leading to a 'wearing out' of cells and hence death.

Answer 2

gribling has the best answer so far. Cells dividing to keep us living are not the same cells as the germ cells that get us started.

There are religionists on here giving bad ratings to the best answers again.

If you change your "why" question to a "how" question, it will become clearer. It is better to look for how things happen than why. Why implies there is a reason and there is none. It just is the way it is.

Answer 3

Well, simply put, the methods of DNA repair in somatic cells (cells of the body, rather than germ-line cells, eggs and sperm) are not 100% perfect.
They are pretty good, but still mistakes creep in occasionally, and will get passed onto the daughter cells after division. Some of these mistakes just make the cell not as good at its job as it used to be (this is called "sinescence"). Other mistakes cause cancer, when the cell growth becomes uncontrolled.

There is a whole area of biological research into this area, called "gerontology".

For the larger question of "why do we have to age and die after having children", genetically speaking, it is because - once we have passed on our genes to the next generation, we are not needed any more. Our genes have been passed on, which is what we are here for.

Answer 4

Simply: each time a cell in our body is copied/replaced the copy loses some information which, over time, makes the organ in which the cell is part of more likely to malfunction or fail.

Depending on how good your diet is, whether or not you get a decent sleep regime, etc will determine how long it takes for individual cells to cause a failure.

Answer 5

That is what life is. If humans never died naturally we would soon overflow the planet. This applies to all life forms.

Of course we are trying to slow down this process so individuals can live longer and better lives. When this happens, the world must practice more birth control.

Answer 6

The body stops being able to renew itself so well after about the age of thirty-thats why people appear to age after this point.

Im 29 now so Im looking forward to that...

Its just a biological kind of trigger. We have a finite life span, the very top of which seems to be about 110-120years old. If the body didn't start to wear out, there would be no room for new people...and so the cycle continues.

Answer 7

You asked WHY we die. A temporary lifespan is related to sexual reproduction. It's a defensive mechanism; having several present genotypes and fewer present phenotypes at one time allows for greater resistance to pathogens. The book "The Red Queen" is all about it if you're interested.

Answer 8

It is pretty simple. Nothing can live very much past it's normal life expectancy. I know to a lot of young people it is all a big mystery. It is difficult to think of death when you are so of life. But, it is simply the biology of all living things. You are born, you live, you die.

Answer 9

lol. you start to die before your even born!!! your entire life you cells start to divde slower and slower, until the day comes were they stop dividing at all!! thats called natural death.

so you are slowly dieing your whole life. thats why our gov and we should invest in genetic research. all you have to do is learn how to manipulate cyclin. cyclin is the regulator for cell division. it tells your cells when to divide, and how often to divide. imagine what we could do if we could tell our cells when to regenerate. with a full code? maybe grow an arm back. control ageing. cure cancer for ever ( cancer is just cyclin going crazy and dividing like crazy) .

= ) im for all research. if we didnt try, were would we be?

Answer 10

Someone sticks a knife in you.


But seriously,our cells have a finite lifespan.Eventually damage catches up with them.