In biology, the whole problem of aging is closely related to a number of areas, among which traditionally stands out the theory of reversibility of life processes, which arose on the basis of the study of dedifferentiation and regeneration.
It is about the opposite (in the morphological sense) movement of the processes of development, or reduction. The experiments of L.Vudroff on the reduction of the hydra during the fasting and its new development after the fasting indirectly confirmed the possibility of directional influence on ontogenesis. The zoologist E. Schults wrote about the limitless ability of living matter to reduce and rejuvenate. In studies on the reduction of the body in experiments on planarians and other multicellular animals (19041908), E. Schulz believed that this would lead to the reverse development of the organism. However, in later studies of Shaksel, Driesch, Hakslee and others, it was shown that this is not quite the case.
A large series of works on rejuvenation was performed on multicellular animals with good ability to regenerate lost parts of the body. Thus, in the experiments of Korshelt (1925), periodic cutting off of a part of the body in planarians led to the regeneration of lost parts and to a 20-fold prolongation of life (from division to division). Even greater progress was achieved in experiments on unicellular animals. For example, Hartmann (1928), by means of 130 periodic amputations of the body of an amoeba, restrained her from division and thus prolonged life (without division) 65 times.
Many researchers have shown that a number of metabolic disorders and the functions of organs and systems in an aging organism are reversible, which opened the way for research on biostimulation as a separate direction in gerontology. Some preparations of cell and tissue therapy, as well as cytotoxic sera belonging to the group of biological stimulants, have high activity and the ability to slow down the aging process. In order to activate the elements of the connective tissue and the immune system, academician A.A. Bogomolets developed and introduced into the practice of medicine anti-reticular cytotoxic serum in 1938, which is successfully used to slow the aging process. Academician V.P. Filatov proposed a method for obtaining tissue therapy preparations or nonspecific biostimulants from animal and plant tissues.
Closely related to the work on biostimulation research on the effect of stress on aging. Whole theories have been developed that treat aging as chronic stress. However, it seems to be of greater importance here to study the mechanisms of adaptation, when stress is only one of the stages of adaptation in general. In the creation of complete theories of adaptation, an important role belongs to domestic scientists. Thus, the studies of L.Kh.Garkavi, E.K. Kvakina and M.A. Ukolova (1975, 2002), recognized in the USSR as a discovery, showed the possibility of long-term support, not activation of stress, but biostimulation. It is accompanied not only by recovery from many chronic diseases but also by obvious signs of rejuvenation. The mechanisms of these influences, the authors see in the restructuring of the bodys reactivity, and especially in improving immunity.
The important role of the immune system in aging was paid attention to for a long time, in particular, the great Russian immunologist and aging biologist I.I. Mechnikov, however, all attempts to create immune theories of aging and even to find out the specific mechanisms of the influence of immunity on aging until recent years were not consistent. This is all the more strange since the experiment has long been known that it is immunologic drugs that are the most effective geroprotectors and biostimulants, and changes in the organs of immunity (thymus) are the most demonstrative during aging.
Currently, however, Russian scientists have shown fundamentally new mechanisms of influence of immunotropic cells in the body. Studies of A.G. Babayeva awarded recognition as a discovery, showed that T-lymphocytes can directly influence the processes of cell growth and the differentiation of various cells. This was the basis for us to put forward a new immune theory of aging, which directly links involution with the age of the immune system and a sharp decline in cellular self-renewal in tissues with dividing cells (skin, mucous, parenchymal organs). These studies also give hope to use a wide class of immuno-pharmacological agents for the prevention and treatment of aging, which has been empirically proposed for a long time as many bio-activators that simultaneously increase the level of the bodys immune defense.
In the last 2030 years, a great number of researchers worked in the field of gerontology specialists from very different fields, including physicists, chemists, and others.
Studies by academician N.M. Emanuel marked the beginning of the development of antioxidants for the prevention of aging and bio-stimulation. A modern, extensive complex of creams and other skin care products practically does not do without substances of this group, as well as programs for the prevention of age-related diseases.
Modern anti-aging creams also include liposomes the result of modern research on the theory and practice of artificial membranes, as well as hyaluronic acid and collagen the result of traditional research on the aging of connective tissue of a large group of domestic and foreign scientists.
Modern studies on biorhythmology and methods of restoring and harmonizing biorhythms are undoubtedly related to the most ancient practices of acupuncture therapy in China. Modern electroacupuncture methods have proven their effectiveness (longevity point, etc.) and are waiting for wider use for the purposes of biostimulation and prolonging life.
Unfortunately, a large number of works claiming to discover the fundamental causes and mechanisms of aging, now have a purely historical interest. In many cases, these works only confused the essence of the issue, as they were based on particular issues, strengthening them to the general.
So, in fact, all theories that take the main role in aging chemical changes the spoilage of proteins, DNA, colloids, etc. under the influence of cross-links, oxygen, etc., do not take into account the main feature of the living self-renewal of the organism and cells and cannot explain the accumulation such changes over time.
Similarly, they did not give much either to practice or the theory of gerontologic and general conclusions not related to examining the organism in all its complexity: Rubners theory, which asserted that the amount of energy processed throughout one kilogram of body weight of different animals equally; theories about the life hours and the spending of the life element the enzyme (I.I. Schmalhausen), the gene (L. Scillard), germplasm, differentiated cells and other material non-aging substrate; theories about the origin of aging in evolution as an adaptive mechanism (including the Weismann theory), ignoring the obvious fact of the overwhelming death of wild animals at a young age; general theories about the relationship of aging and development, reducing aging to a specific aging program, including the death genes or the programmed number of divisions for each cell (Hayflicks theory), etc.; Carrels observations, pointing to the immortality of dividing cells and not taking into account the principle difference between population cellular phenomena and processes in the whole organism; Minots ideas, which associate cell differentiation with their death, but ignoring intracellular self-renewal, allowing non-fissile neurocytes to live throughout the whole organism and regulatetorus influences that sharply suppress potential-dividing cells, as well as many other ancient and modern theories. In general, it can be seen that research on the study of specific mechanisms of aging, very extensive and diverse, in most cases quite successfully led to the creation of various methods and means of biostimulation and prevention of individual manifestations of aging.
However, all the claims of researchers of this type to the creation of general theories of aging turned out to be completely untenable. This is not surprising since it is not methodologically correct to reduce the general laws and principles (namely, at this level, the analysis of the essence and cause of aging should be carried out) to separate mechanisms and manifestations to particular aspects of the complex and diverse phenomenon of aging. The extreme specialization of modern scientists, which has led to just such a result, in recent years has finally been realized that it has stimulated the development of general methods of analysis the theory of systems, self-organization, cybernetics, synergetics, etc. allow you to see the features of a common single natural theory of aging, to the creation of which all scientists aspired. The rapid development of statistics and demography somewhat overshadowed by the biology of aging, the achievements obtained by specialists in life expectancy biology. Thus, data from radiobiology, largely based on an analysis of the survival rate of irradiated animals, showed the possibility of accelerating natural aging this is practically the only method that makes it possible to simulate accelerated aging adequate to the natural one. An analysis of historical mortality data allowed us to detect the phenomenon of the historical stability of the age-related component of mortality with a sharp decrease in the background or external medium component of mortality, which indicates the possibility of a sharp decrease in mortality due to socio-preventive measures, but denies the possibility of influencing in this way essentially, on the essential, internal processes of aging for the body (Dontsov, 2019).
Comparison of the age-related component of mortality for different regions of the World showed that although for each region they are historically stable, they differ for different regions.
It was mathematics that long ago resolved the dispute about the Maximum life span, as biologists believed, the ultimate survival age for organisms, replacing the absolute limit with the probabilistic survival law, as well as radically changing the notion of hereditary longevity, the ability to increase the Maximum life span with disease does not match the essence of aging, etc.
1.3. Methodology of knowledge: three stages, three paradigms
The presence of hundreds of theories of aging to date indicates not only and not so much the lack of a unified theory, general views, or lack of knowledge of the causes and essence of aging, but often a methodological lack of understanding of the subject matter. Although many gerontologists understood the importance of general biological laws (Bogomolets, 1938; Comfort, 1967; Dilman, 1981; Dogel, 1922; Frolkis V.V., Muradjan, 1992; Korshelt, 1925; Streler, 1964; Shmalgausen, 1926; Nagorny A.V., Nikitin V.N., Bulankin, 1963; Vojtenko, Poljuhov, 1986; Zavadsky, 1923), the main attention was drawn to the study of specific mechanisms of aging, issued as a reason. Science in historical development has gone through three stages, and each is characterized by its own general paradigm.
The first stage is determinism, which has received its maximum expression, apparently, in Laplace. According to his extreme ideas, know-ledge of the initial conditions uniquely determines everything that follows: knowledge of the initial coordinates and momentum of all particles at the Beginning of the World uniquely determines its picture to the present moment and the future of the World. The main disadvantage of this methodical approach is the mechanism: everything is predetermined by initial conditions, there is no freedom, in fact, there is no place for life, feeling, intelligence, free will and the whole diversity of the real World.
The subsequent development of science has changed this view of the opposite. The stochastic vision of the World, most pronounced in probability theory and quantum mechanics, was based on the recognition of a physical law stating that it is impossible to simultaneously and accurately determine the coordinate and momentum the uncertainty principle in quantum physics. However, the proliferation of global stochasticity as a method from the micro level to the level of complex objects led to another extreme the general unpredictability of phenomena, which also does not correspond to the state of things.
The development of a systemsapproach brought science out of a methodological crisis, while not discarding what has been achieved. Already one enumeration of its characteristic features, shown below, shows the enormous potential possibilities of a systematic approach a new, whole world view (Checkland, 1986; Wolfram, 2002, etc.).
1.4. Features of the system approach as a modern universal scientific method of problem analysis
1.4.1. Using a systematic approach to analyze оf aging process
Already a short review of the system analysis requirements for the aging phenomenon makes it possible to see a number of crucially important points for analyzing the problem.
The principle of unity of the whole requires that a certain integral self-sufficient system be put in the basis of consideration. This means that the full consideration of aging is possible only for the level of the whole organism. Indeed, at the level of populations, the very concept of aging is blurred, as at the level of cells and molecules, when you can get a variety of cultural phenomena and interpret them in an arbitrary way. The importance of the principle of integrity, unity of the organism as a system is also clearly seen in the first experience of heart transplantation: in a couple of years the transplanted young heart was not much different from the old one: aging was directed by the whole organism, and the young part could not preserve its youth in the old organism. The same applies to the transfer of young stem cells to the old organism and vice versa: old cells retain their potencies and can manifest them in a young organism, while young cells reduce their abilities in the old organism (Albright., Makinodan,1976; Gorskaya et al., 2011) the determining role of the microenvironment and external influences on the state of cells.
Considering the reality of universal interrelationships is all the more important since aging is a long-lasting process. At the same time, small changes and side for the main consideration of the reaction are decisive. So, besides the reactions directed by enzymes studied in biochemistry, all possible physicochemical processes in biological systems actually take place, which forms the basis of the aging processes in the form of contamination with secondary metabolites. Similarly, the universality of interrelations means a really huge number of influences on a real-life system and determines its fundamental vulnerability: the mortality of a particular system cannot be zero and even an eternally young organism will not be immortal the stochastic mechanism of mortality. The same, when applied to specific internal structures, reveals the stochastic mechanism of system aging.
The idea that parts of a whole are not separate entities, but units of division of a fundamentally different type (entity-in-relationship) allows us to apply analysis methods at the abstract level and consider the real structure by considering the essential relationships of structural parts, which also applies to weakly structured systems (for example, metabolism for living organisms).