Читать книгу Aging - Harry R. Moody - Страница 33

Like the effects of wear and tear, the action of free radicals contributes to physical aging (Halliwell & Gutteridge, 2015). As they engage in metabolism, all cells produce waste products. Among those waste products are free radicals, or molecules of ionized oxygen, which have an extra electron. Those ionized oxygen molecules cause damage because they more readily bond with proteins and other physiological structures. Sometimes the proteins become inactive and unable to carry out their functions. Even oxygen, the essential element required for energy transformation in living organisms, can become a destructive force.

Certain physiological processes can fight the effects of free radicals, but over time the reduction of functional capacity damages the organism. Free radicals have been implicated in many processes of physical aging (Armstrong et al., 1984). A similar mechanism of physical aging is glycosylation. Among the most universal of all chemical changes in living things are those involving sugar (glucose). Along with oxygen, glucose is the basis for metabolism in all organisms. When foods such as meat and bread are heated, the proteins combine with sugar and turn brown, in a process known as caramelization. In our bodies, the sticky by-products of this chemical reaction can literally gum up our cells. Glycosylation is behind much of the damage created in adult-onset diabetes as well as stiffened joints and blocked arteries.

Is it possible to reverse the signs of aging caused by free radicals or glycosylation? Perhaps so, but that intervention is not likely to be simple—at least not as simple, for instance, as taking an “antiaging pill.”