Handbook of the Biology of Aging (Handbooks of Aging)

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Handbook of the Biology of Aging

Handbooks of Aging Paperback: Academic Press; 7 edition November 30, Language: Related Video Shorts 0 Upload your video. Try the Kindle edition and experience these great reading features: Share your thoughts with other customers. Write a customer review. There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later. This is a challenging book to get through, unless someone has a background in molecular biology and the biological sciences. It's not really an appropriate source for a high school student, unless they are particularly talented, and would be challenging for many college biology students as well.

It's really aimed at the advanced student, graduate student, or researcher, or geriatrician, or someone else who is quite sophisticated about biology and particularly about molecular biology. However, with that qualification in mind, the articles are uniformly of high quality, and address critical issues in the science of aging - several of these reviews are good enough to be considered benchmark reviews, cogently summarizing the state of the science. I wish there had been a better chapter on calorie restriction mimetics substances that mimic the physiology of calorie restriction but without the pain of chronic hunger , and although many chapters addressed the relationship between these various topics and particular diseases of aging, there were no chapters specifically addressing the primary diseases of aging namely cancer, Alzheimer's disease, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, etc.

This is an important and timely book, on a very important subject. The emerging and expanding science of the biology of aging, as a vigorous area of scientific inquiry, takes place at a time when the demographics of Western societies are tilting towards an increasingly high percentage of elderly citizens. Roughly 25 years of this 30 year gain in life span can be attributed to one primary factor, namely the lessening the impact from early mortality due to infectious diseases in children and young adults, in the context of better hygiene and the creation of effective antibiotics and vaccines CDC, This has yielded a situation in which many Western societies are now for the first time in human history facing the prospect of having more people over the age of 60 than under the age of By the end of the century, fully one third of the world's population will be over 60 Lutz et al, These demographic shifts will centrally include a huge increase in the very old in the coming four decades.

In , more than an estimated 5.

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Currently, number of centenarians in this country Americans years and older is estimated at roughly 80,, but by there will be more than , Americans age years or older. This is unprecedented in human history.

Some evidence argues that these diseases may be in large part diseases of Western civilization primarily due to modern lifestyles and relatively rare in elders from hunter-gatherer societies compared to Western societies, even when the younger mortality of hunter-gatherers is taken into account Eaton et al. The impact of these large demographic shifts and the associated increased penetration of diseases of aging on healthcare economics, combined with the increasing costs of high technology-driven healthcare interventions, is quietly anticipated to be fiscally catastrophic, involving or a steady annual escalation of healthcare costs to unsustainable levels GAO, ; Conrad, The impact on healthcare economics of an aging demographic, combined with an increasing emphasis on high technology, is increasingly penetrant and, frankly, worrisome, particularly in terms of its impact on healthcare economics in this country.

Healthcare expense as a proportion of GDP is projected without substantive changes in practice trends or chronic illnesses to rise to 28 percent in more than one dollar in every four and to 34 percent by more than one dollar in every three CEA, These are frightening statistics, suggesting that the current rate of escalation in health care expenditures is unsustainable.

However, the demographic shifts towards an aging population are only one contributing factor in these accelerating expenditures, and are paired with escalating cost of first-line drugs, high-technology interventions and the high overhead associated with the burgeoning healthcare and health insurance bureaucracy itself CEA, Evidence suggests that as much as three quarters of the increasing costs are due to factors other than an aging demographic CEA, Despite these enormous and escalating financial outlays in healthcare, overall health may be actually declining in the United States, as measured by several indices currently the United States ranks around 50th in life expectancy, while other indices, such as infant mortality are also worrisome and rank 46th, behind all of Western Europe and Canada CIA Factbook.

As the baby boomers enter the decades of greatest risk for cancers, heart disease, stroke, arthritis, Alzheimer's disease, macular degeneration, and other diseases of aging, the evidence is that the healthcare system as it is currently structured will eventually undergo a slowly progressive but fundamental collapse, in the context of these unsustainable cost escalations.

Meaningful strategic options to prevent this fiscal implosion have not yet been developed. These issues are rarely if ever adequately addressed or acknowledged in the current "health care debate". Indeed, one could argue that the current healthcare debate is a little bit like a bunch of people on a high-speed train that is accelerating towards a known break in the track ahead, while everyone is arguing about when and how the track is going to repair itself, instead of insisting that the train slow down, or get on to a better and safer track.

In addition to its financial impact on healthcare economics, aging in the Western societies is also anticipated to have a more generalized and severely deleterious impact on Western economies, as an increasing percentage of retired elderly severely strain basic social safety net and entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security, deteriorate tax and revenue margins, and stretch virtually every societal resource potentially to a breaking point McKinsey Global Institute, In this context, research into understanding aging, and how we might slow aging and prevent or at least substantially delay some of its nastier but intrinsic manifestations AKA the diseases of aging is badly needed.

This is a state-of-the-art textbook for people looking for state-of-the-art summaries. For those looking for a general overview on aging or on a particular disease of agingthat is a bit more digestible, this textbook will be a disappointment and may overwhelm the average reader. Highly recommended if you are the right sort of audience. Unlike most handbooks, this one is entirely new with each edition. This one covers and updates many of the recent advances in the biology of aging. It is written for a professional audience, and will give scientists a good sense of some of the advances in a now hot and fast-moving field.

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Your recently viewed items and featured recommendations. View or edit your browsing history. The volume is primarily directed at basic researchers who wish to keep abreast of new research outside their own subdiscipline.

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It will also be useful to medical, behavioral, and social gerontologists who want to learn about the discoveries of basic scientists and clinicians. We use cookies to help provide and enhance our service and tailor content and ads. By continuing you agree to the use of cookies. Masoro and Steven N.

Handbook of the Biology of Aging | ScienceDirect

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Book description Handbook of the Biology of Aging, Seventh Edition, reviews and synthesizes recent findings and discoveries in the field. This volume is part of The Handbooks of Aging series, which Description Handbook of the Biology of Aging, Seventh Edition, reviews and synthesizes recent findings and discoveries in the field.


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Key Features Contains basic aging processes as determined by animal research as well as medical physiology of aging as known in humans Covers hot areas of research, like stem cells, integrated with longstanding areas of interest in aging like telomeres, mitochondrial function, etc. Edited by one of the fathers of gerontology Masoro and contributors represent top scholars in gerintology.