Time of Our Lives The Science of Human Aging [Paperback]

By the year 2050 one in five of the world's population will be 65 or older, a fact which presages profound medical, biological, philosophical, and political changes in the coming century. InTime of Our Lives, Tom Kirkwood draws on more than twenty years of research to make sense of the evolution of aging, to explain how aging occurs, and to answer fundamental questions like why women live longer than men. He shows that we age because our genes, evolving at a time when life was nasty, brutish, and short, placed little priority on the long-term maintenance of our bodies. With such knowledge, along with new insights from genome research, we can devise ways to target the root causes of aging and of age-related diseases such as Alzheimer's and osteoporosis. He even considers the possibility that human beings will someday have greatly extended life spans or even be free from senescence altogether.

Beautifully written by one of the world's pioneering researchers into the science of aging,Time of Our Livesis a clear, original and, above all, inspiring investigation of a process all of us experience but few of us understand.

A conversational, intelligent look at the current understanding of how and why biological aging occurs, along with some suggestions for how to stay healthy in old age....Kirikwood is an amiable, intelligent guide at the forefront of a fast-changing field. His is an entertaining and informative look at our current understanding of aging. --Kirkus Reviews

Tom Kirkwoodis Professor of Biological Gerontology at the University of Manchester and Director of the Manchester-Newcastle Joint Center on Aging. He is a member of several international editorial boards and scientific committees, an adviser to the World Health Organization, and winner of the Heinz Karger Prize on cellular aging. Mr. Kirkwood lives in Manchester, England.