• Question: why do people have to die

    Asked by 522brna36 to Áine, Ciarán, Eoin, Lydia, Victoria on 20 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Lydia Bach

      Lydia Bach answered on 20 Nov 2014:

      Hey,

      there are many reasons why people have to die, including early death from:
      starvation, dehydration and malnutrition. These cause they body to cease functioning because we depend on nutrients, food and water to maintain the body functions. Diseases can damage our body (which is like an operating system) as well, resulting in death.
      And of course predation in the old days when we still roamed the wilderness of the world.

      Ageing happens to all living things, plants and animals alike.We are biological systems which need energy to function, but also gradual deteriorate. It happens for a number of reasons. Our cells get older and stop dividing at some point. Their genetic material changes over time as well, with DNA damage accumulating in time. These cells often still function, but are play a role age-related diseases.

      Other damage just accumulates in time and can’t be repaired. For example, older people shrink because the disks and joints between the bones get’s compacted and become smaller over time (like wear and tear), or because of a bone disease called osteoporosis, where the mass of the bone becomes smaller.

    • Photo: Ciarán O'Brien

      Ciarán O'Brien answered on 20 Nov 2014:

      Most people die because just being alive causes damage to your body, and there’s only so much it can take before it stops working. 🙁

      Scientists have been finding that the damage that builds up in your body as you age can be very complicated. Besides broken bones, torn muscles and bruises, things like cholesterol can build up in your veins and block the flow of blood, tiny little proteins can build up in your brain like plaque builds up on your teeth when you don’t brush them, and it slowly shuts your brain down (things like dementia and Alzheimer’s disease are caused by this), and damage to your DNA can build up to the point where cells become cancerous. Cells have a sort of in built timer in their DNA as well, called telomeres, which get shorter every time a cell divides because the cell can’t copy the last little bit of DNA because of the shape of the molecule, so telomeres act as a shield so they get left out instead of more important DNA. Once the telomeres are gone, a cell can’t really divide without causing damage to itself (A lot of cancers happen because of this).

      If we were able to repair this damage or stop it altogether, then people might be able to live for as long as they wanted. Scientists are making some progress, especially on the things that stop your brain from working and cancer. Experiments with an enzyme called telomerase could mean we might be able to artificially lengthen the telomeres in our DNA and extend our cell’s lives.

      But it will be a long time before anyone figures out how to put this all together and invent a way to slow down or stop aging that’s safe for everyone. Until then, we’re stuck with the bodies we have and we’ll just have to find a way to come to terms with it.

      I know it sounds cruel, but there can be benefits to people not living forever. If nobody ever died, where would new people live? Where would we find food to feed everyone? Or jobs for them to do? There have been a lot more humans that have died than there are living humans, life would quickly get unbearable for everyone. And it’s possible that living for so long would just end up driving people insane from all the things they’ve seen.

      In a weird way, dying is what makes life worth living in the first place 🙂

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