Senescence

As we age, our bodies begin to break down. It’s comparable to the Second Law of Thermodynamics: the universe always tends to move towards disorder. We come fresh out of the womb in condensed little bodies and grow until we reach our genetic capacity. When we die, our bodies rot in the ground while worms eat away at our insides. Our small little bodies grow into worm food: disorder. This is the common process known as aging. It is our human way of trying to document how many years our bodies have…

Cancer is a very serious problem in today’s world. Research shows that in 2016 an estimated 1,685,210 new cases will be diagnosed in the United States and about 595,690 will die from the disease. Most people would never imagine themselves being diagnosed with cancer, but what if you were suddenly taken to the hospital and given the horrible news of being diagnosed with cancer? Would you accept the fact that you may die and let cancer win? Or would you try your hardest to beat cancer and live…

Progeria In Greek, progeria, means prematurely aged. There are two types of progeria. The most common, is Hutchinson-Guilford. Wiedemann-Rautenstrauch syndrome is the second type of progeria, which appears in children while they’re still in utero (Erickson Gabbey, 2016). For years, scientists had researched in an attempt to learn the cause of this disease that affects children. After decades of scientific research, the gene for Progeria Syndrome was found in April 2003 by a group of researchers…

Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States after heart disease. The cancer I will be researching is brain cancer. The reason why I chose to research this is because I have always been interested in working in the medical field, but I didn’t know what particular area. I started to do research on different types of doctors. The one that interested me the most was Neurosurgeons. Neurosurgeons are doctors who specialize in surgery on the brain and spinal column. The brain is…

Mutation in the silencing gene SIR4 can delay aging in S. cerevisiae Gene mutations that affect silencing at HM loci, telomeres and other regions of the chromosome have been shown to relate to stress resistance and aging in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. S. cerevisiae is a species of yeast in which goes through asymmetrical cellular division. Its lifespan is measured by the number of cellular divisions the mother cell is able to complete before death. In the research study by Kennedy et al, the…

There is evidence that illustrate that long term stressors have lifelong effects on both health and longevity. People with type a personality or those who frequently experience highly stressing situations throughout their lifetime are greatly affected. Based on the stress and coping paradigm, stress could be an interaction of a thinking person (Lazarus, 1984; Lazarus et al., 1985 Lazarus & Folkman, 1984).Over time the daily stressors of work, family, and financial needs with the combination of…

Colorectal cancer is the third most common type of cancer, and the second leading cause of cancer death in the United States. Estimates show that reaching desired outcomes, in terms of colorectal cancer screening, could save 18,800 lives per year (U.S. Preventive Services Task Force USPSTF, 2014). According to Cancer Statistics, 2015; estimates of new colorectal cancer cases and deaths in the United States by the end of this year are: 132,700 and 49,700 respectively. In addition, estimates of…

Until recently, individuals with Intellectual and Development Disabilities (IDD) were expected to have a short life span. Growing older brings many age related signs and symptoms affecting this population not only physically, emotionally, but cognitively as well. While the body ages, certain progressive changes occur; which may be dictated by genes, environmental factors, or lifestyle. Anatomical transformations occur in all systems from the muscular skeletal with the loss of some agility to…

If we look all the way back at the early European travelers in the early 1500’s that set their destinations on the Fountain of Youth, a magical source of water capable of reversing the aging process for man, people have been obsessed with the idea of looking younger. As people are aging, there is one common trend amongst everyone, how to achieve the effect of looking and feeling younger. As much as people do not want to believe it or come to terms with their bodies aging, everyone will…

I conducted an in-person interview that took place in the home of the interviewee in Phoenix, Arizona. The interview was conducted on October 21st and lasted about 2 hours. I will be referring to my interviewee as “Dona” in order to protect her identity and keep her completely anonymous. For my interview I decided to take careful notes and directly transcribe the responses during the interview. As the interview began I noticed that “Dona” was responding with generic answers and gave minimal…