Le Bourg Eric
Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition Animale, UMR CNRS 5169, Université Paul-Sabatier, Toulouse, France.
Interdiscip Top Gerontol. 2014;39:8-23. doi: 10.1159/000358897. Epub 2014 May 13.
Evolutionary theories of aging explain why we age. These theories take into account the fact that, in the wild, mean lifespan of many species is usually shorter than it could be in protected environments. In such conditions, because most of animals die before reaching old age, there is no selection in favor or against alleles with effects at old age. Alleles with negative effects at this age can thus accumulate in successive generations, particularly if they also have positive effects at young age and are thus retained by selection. This chapter describes the evolutionary theories of aging and their consequences for the understanding of the biology of aging as well as the challenges to these theories. It is argued that these theories offer a reasonable explanation to the existence of the aging process even if they can surely be refined.
衰老的进化理论解释了我们衰老的原因。这些理论考虑到这样一个事实，即在自然环境中，许多物种的平均寿命通常比在受保护环境中可能达到的寿命要短。在这种情况下，由于大多数动物在达到老年之前就死亡了，所以不存在对老年期有影响的等位基因的正向或负向选择。因此，在这个年龄段具有负面影响的等位基因会在连续几代中积累，特别是如果它们在年轻时也有正面影响并因此被选择保留下来。本章描述了衰老的进化理论及其对理解衰老生物学的影响，以及这些理论所面临的挑战。有人认为，即使这些理论肯定可以进一步完善，但它们为衰老过程的存在提供了一个合理的解释。
