Lifespan: The Revolutionary Science of Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have To

by David A. Sinclair

Now imagine you’re in a concert hall. A virtuoso pianist is seated at a gorgeously polished Steinway grand. The concerto begins. The music is beautiful, breathtaking. Everything is perfect. But then, a few minutes into the piece, the pianist misses a key. The first time it happens, it’s almost unnoticeable—an extra D, perhaps, in a chord that doesn’t need that note. Embedded in so many perfectly played notes, hidden among an otherwise flawless chord in an otherwise perfect melody, it’s nothing to worry about. But then, a few minutes later, it happens again. And then, with increasing frequency, again and again and again. It’s important to remember that there is nothing wrong with the piano. And the pianist is playing most of the notes prescribed by the composer. She’s just also playing some extra notes. Initially, this is just annoying. Over time it becomes unsettling. Eventually it ruins the concerto. Indeed, we’d assume that there was something wrong with the pianist. Someone might even rush onto the stage to make sure she is all right. Epigenetic noise causes the same kind of chaos. It is driven in large part by highly disruptive insults to the cell, such as broken DNA, as it was in the original survival circuit of M. superstes and in the old yeast cells that lost their fertility. And this, according to the Information Theory of Aging, is why we age. It’s why our hair grays. It’s why our skin wrinkles. It’s why our joints begin to ache. Moreover, it’s why each one of the...