{"id":5437,"date":"2019-08-31T00:17:04","date_gmt":"2019-08-31T00:17:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vivehealth.com.au\/blog\/?p=5437"},"modified":"2019-08-31T00:17:05","modified_gmt":"2019-08-31T00:17:05","slug":"theories-aging-want-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vivehealth.com.au\/blog\/2019\/08\/31\/theories-aging-want-know\/","title":{"rendered":"Theories of Aging | Why Do We Want to Know This"},"content":{"rendered":"

Written by Marilyn Lemaire<\/a> | Naturopath & Master Herbalist<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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Aging is happening to all of us. \u00a0\u00a0My peer group, the \u201cBaby Boomers\u201d are reaching the time of their lives when they are the new \u201cSenior\u2019s\u201d. The Health Care System is afraid of the impact our health will have on the government \u2018s health budget.\u00a0 As a personal observation, I do not believe we want to be a cost to the health care system, we would rather be healthy, have quality of life, be free to work or not, be involved with our network of friends, still feel a purpose and know that there are systems in place that are supportive for us as we age.<\/p>\n

Successful aging is a contentious term and when we talk about getting older in the best possible way we know it is more than maintaining health.\u00a0 The journey of aging requires resources, understanding the aging process, a supportive community, health action, resilience and I think a sense of humour.\u00a0 As well as the awareness of myself aging, I find observing the process of aging and the needs that come with aging to be complex and at times challenging.<\/p>\n

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I have been involved in the health industry for over 30 years and one of the most inspiring situations is observing a person take a serious interest in their health and next put in effort and action in order to achieve feeling better and happier. I want to play a role for this group to encourage change towards better health.\u00a0 The saying \u201cit takes a community to raise a child\u201d can also be used for aging as it requires a community of health support, physical support, nutritional support, social support, intellectual stimulation and a network of family and friends to age fruitfully.<\/p>\n

There are many layers to the process of aging and there are numerous ways we can influence this process.\u00a0 The aging process is best approached with determination to stay well, if not well \u2013 then get better and most of all get involved.<\/p>\n

Bowling (1) defined healthy aging as \u201caging with the absence of illness or disease, maintaining healthy physical and cognitive function and being involved\u201d.\u00a0 This description was found to not align with the experience of older individuals and how they defined healthy aging.\u00a0 The new evidence points that we benefit from the resilience its takes to deal with and overcoming the challenge of illness and disease (2).\u00a0 Research by Cosco (2) found that older individuals reported: there was more to aging than physical health, the attitude an aging individual has is crucial and there was a consensus that when defining successful aging components that are beyond physical health have to be included in the definition.<\/p>\n

Cosco surveyed older individuals and they named; social roles, self-awareness, acceptance, perspective, engagement, spirituality, maintenance, quality of life, community, prevention and remediation, independence and adjustment as key issues that defined successful aging.\u00a0 When the definitions were further explored the addition of environment and finances were added to the concerns.\u00a0 An interesting point was that in this research, longevity was identified the \u201cleast\u201d frequent of concerns.\u00a0 We could conclude that quality of life is significantly more important than quantity of life.<\/p>\n

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Theories of Aging<\/h2>\n

Understanding theories of aging gives us ideas and strategies of how we can make this inevitable experience less challenging.\u00a0 There are many complaints about the process of aging but there are also action plans that can be implemented to age well.\u00a0 It is beneficial to be aware of these theories and reasons why we age and how we age. Quach (3) in summary said that identifying the biomarkers of aging can lead us to understanding, slowing, halting and reversing aging.<\/p>\n

To date over 300 hypothesis explaining the aging process have been postulated and with the advancements in cellular and microbiology the number of theories are increasing (4).\u00a0 There are missing pieces to solving the aging process puzzle so at best the theories help guide future experiments that will hopefully provide further research and information on the biology of the aging process (4).<\/p>\n

The main theories of aging are:<\/p>\n