Expert: Sridhar Acharya Malkaram - 11/21/2010

Question
can we stop changes in occurring in DNA while we grow old?  

Answer
I am afraid, we cannot stop the natural changes that occur. THe body produces new cells as they grow old, and in this process the DNA has to be copied. During this process  there could be errors in the process of replication. However, the mechanism of repair corrects most of these errors. There is also another source of errors occurring due to DNA elements called transposons, which can cause insertions and deletions. These processes that occur in every cell of the billions of cells in the body can't be stopped, unless we could probably come up to precisely deal with these processes.