Aging and Dietary Restriction

Evolutionary biologists have argued that aging is inevitable because of several tradeoffs. One tradeoff is that a considerable proportion of an animal's resources is devoted to reproduction at a cost to maintenance, which means that the maintenance of somatic tissues is less than that required for indefinite survival. Of the vast array of maintenance processes that are necessary to sustain normal function in somatic cells, those that defend the cell against metabolism derived oxidants are likely to play an important role.

Metabolism has costs: oxidants by-products of normal energy metabolism extensively damage DNA, proteins, and other molecules in the cell, and this damage accumulates with age.

Another tradeoff is that nature selects for many genes that have immediate survival value, but that may have long term deleterious consequences. The oxidative burst from phagocytic cells, for example, protects against death from bacterial and viral infections, but contributes to DNA damage, mutation, and cancer.

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