Death by Evolutionary Neglect: A Modern Theory of Epigenaging

Death and suffering are all around us.On the streets, in supermarkets, hospitals, and elder-care homes.In your family, in my family.Within just a few generations, we have defeated nearly all the killers that once took the lives of our ancestors.But there is one last killer standing: the illness of old age — epigenaging.Follow me on a journey through time and space —from the Danube marshes of the early 19th century to contemporary Japan and the European Union.Descend into the hydrothermal vents at the dawn of time, witness the evolution of complex life billions of years ago, and return with me to today’s world of electron microscopes, gene sequencers, and AI servers to answer two existential questions:Why do we age?How do we age?This book weaves together a new approach to evolutionary biology and latest epigenetic discoveries to uncover the true cause of aging — not as an inevitable fate, but as an epigenetic disease caused by evolutionary neglect.Epigenaging — a term coined in this work — merges epigenetic drift and aging to describe the pathological process underlying human senescence and age-related mortality as it is understood today.The Death by Evolutionary Neglect Theory (DENT) introduced in this book offers a new framework for explaining the origins of epigenaging. It is supported by recent evidence from epigenetic clocks and comparative analyses of external mortality across vertebrate species.Because it is necessary to understand epigenaging in order to defeat it. Read more