Expert: Walter Hintz - 11/18/2005

Question
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Followup To
Question -
What are the effects of hormones exactly? Are they really the main thing that controls the phazes of life, graying hair, shortening, loss of fertility, and potency of thought around age 18? Why has hormone therapy had any drawbacks? Is it that these hormones that people typically take are synthetic and not product by the person taking them, or rather not reproduced from natural hormones of that person? Could someone therietically live forever if they could have the right hormones going through them all the time? If not just hormones, what else would need to be true for eternal life to even be possible? Very idealistic I know, but I figure cost for one person to have their hormones cultured must be rather expensive, along with other unfeasible procedures?
Answer -
Hi James:
You have asked questions here that I could prepare a complete lecture on so I can respond only briefly.  Hormones carry out slowly what the nervous system does quickly.  Consider thermoregulation.  When you get cold you shiver to trap heat.  Metabolic hormones stimulate a greater metabolic rate to increase heat production.  They work in different ways.  Some like insulin act like a carrier molecule helping getting glucose into the cells.  Others latch on to target cells increasing enzyme activity.Often they are homeostatic in action..
 They do control the activities you mention.  Hormone therapy can cause problems because it is difficult to achieve balance.  There is controversy over the use of synthetic hormones.
 As to immortality it is doubtful that hormones could halt the aging process.

What if anything could halt, or even help reverse the aging process? The nervous system works quickly, so is the key to it? There must be a way to loop certain processes that occur while one is in their prime?

Answer
Apparently halting the aging process requires altering the factors that cause cellular damage.  At this time it appears that these are mainly anti-oxidents resulting from normal metabolic processes.
 Other than that aging seems to be mysterious and inevitible. It seems we can can extend life spans but not indefinitely.
 Cells have a form of immortality since they just divide asexually and can therefore die only by accident but multicellular organisms that reproduce sexually are mortal.  The price for sexuality is death.