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Our topic today is the regulation of
mammalian aging by growth hormone.
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Before going into this topic,
I thought we can spend a
few moments thinking about
what is the reason that we're
interested in studying aging,
and why we feel that this
research may be important.
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What is shown in this image is
the incidence of a variety
of chronic diseases:
heart conditions, diabetes,
dementia, and so forth,
and also all-cause mortality.
What is obvious is that the
incidence of all of this,
the risk for all those diseases
increases very much with age.
In many cases,
aging is, in fact,
the most important risk factor
with nothing really
coming close.
Please note that these data are
plotted on the
logarithmic scale.
In other words, if this
was a linear scale,
the lines would have
been almost vertical.
It's a very dramatic increase
in the risk factor with age.
Now, most people
working in the biology of
aging including our group,
feel this data along
with other evidence
implies that if we could
reduce the rate of aging
if we could inhibit their
biological process of aging,
we could produce an
important reduction
in the risk of all
these diseases.
That, in fact, we could
postpone them or make
them less common.
There is considerable
evidence from work
in experimental animals
showing that this goal,
even though it may appear to be
very difficult, is
probably realistic.
That, in fact, in
situations where we
can slow the aging process
and extend longevity,
we also postpone the onset
of aging-related diseases,
and we can reduce
their incidence.
Since we are interested in,
