Aging is not a disease, but it's the gradual weakening of the body, as the body gets weaker it gets more prone to diseases. So one doesn't die from aging but from diseases. So if one didn't catch any diseases, would it possible for him/her to live forever? Or just longer than the maximum life span?
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2$\begingroup$ A lot of deaths are mechanical, and ageing would eventually tire the muscles so much that the heart stops when the person can't even lift their arm up any more at 150 or something, heart attacks are probably eventually due to heart muscle being unfit. The nerve cells also age and dont grow new cells, the rest of the cells grow back old... avoiding blood clots in the brain requires that the person's blood flow remains pure and clean for 140 years, while in actual fact it develops kindof mechanical problems. The skin would end up so fragile at 250 years that it would be like wet paper. $\endgroup$– bandybabboonNov 5, 2017 at 14:38
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1$\begingroup$ just as the skin loses elasticitty, the veins do too, the person would slowly turn to mush. $\endgroup$– bandybabboonNov 5, 2017 at 14:43
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$\begingroup$ Have you tried to answer why there is "... gradual weakening of the body ...".The answer is:aging manifests itself in the form of weakening type diseases termed as age related diseases and a aged human may not necessarily die of infectious diseases (if that is what you mean in the question).The weakening type diseases are inevitable because they involve mass changes at metabolic,cellular and physiological levels. $\endgroup$– user 33690Nov 6, 2017 at 6:26
2 Answers
No that is not possible ever. There is something called telomere which is present in the chromosomes of cell .These Telomere triggers the action of ageging and leads body towards death. When we are in growing age the amount of telemere is very less but as we get older and older the amount of telemere get increases . The rate of increase of telemere increases with each succesive cell disivision. Hence death is sure no matter what ever you do.
The diseases are only a part of it. Aging is also accidents and such. Cancer would still be prevalent as would accidental deaths. Even a perfect body would eventually fail because individual cell death would lead to organ failure and then death. This cellular death would come from cells failing to commit to apoptosis or from mutations. It won't be possible to live forever, but by using science and medicine, we can greatly lengthen our lives.