[Physiology and physiopathology of aging].

First of all some information will be given on history, methods and the actual situation of the research in aging. Aging ist not a disease but a physiologic process characterized by growth and maturity events which legally change the functional performances and the anatomical structures of the human beings in time. This aging trend depends on the metabolism of the living cells whose metabolism changes over the years. This will be demonstrated by the example of the connective tissue metabolism. Even if aging in itself is not a disease at all there still is the fact that morbidity, a multimorbidity, is certainly higher in old age than in the youth. These diseases which are almost continually existing with old age individually vary the length of life which is determined by genetic factors. The whole mode of procedure of the pathogenesis of a chronical disease will be treated on the basis of the most frequent disease in aging: arteriosclerosis.