Dr. Giacinto Libertini

Giacinto Libertini, M.D. is an Independent Researcher working for ASL Napoli 2 Nord and is author of Evolutionary Interpretations of Aging, Disease Phenomenon, and Sex and of Evolutionary Arguments on Aging, Disease, and Other Topics.
 
There are two main aging concepts as applied to humans and most other mammals. The programmed aging theories, also known as adaptive or active aging theories, propose that mammals and some other species purposely deteriorate with age because a limited life span provides evolutionary benefits. Non-programmed theories, also known as passive or non-adaptive theories, contend that a limited life span is entirely adverse and that aging is not genetically programmed for the purpose of causing deterioration or death.
 
Programmed theories provide a better match to observations, but are based on newer concepts regarding evolution mechanisms. Non-programmed theories have difficulty explaining many observations but are compatible with older evolutionary mechanics concepts.
 
This issue is important because most people in developed countries now die of age-related diseases. Understanding, preventing, and treating these diseases requires that we understand the aging process. However, the main goal is the complete control of aging mechanisms, a task that is utopian for non-programmed aging theories while it is realistic for the programmed aging theories. Aging is, in short, a progressive slowing down of cell turnover restrained and regulated in particular by telomere-telomerase system and by apoptotic mechanisms, which are in principle modifiable as some recent experiments on telomerase activation show.
 
Giacinto authored Phenoptosis, Another Specialized Neologism, or the Mark of a Widespread Revolution?, Classification of Phenoptotic Phenomena, Prospects of a Longer Life Span beyond the Beneficial Effects of a Healthy Lifestyle, The Role of Telomere-Telomerase System in Age-Related Fitness Decline, a Tameable Process, Evolutionary Explanations of the “Actuarial Senescence in the Wild” and of the “State of Senility”, Empirical Evidence for Various Evolutionary Hypotheses on Species Demonstrating Increasing Mortality with Increasing Chronological Age in the Wild, An Adaptive Theory of the Increasing Mortality with Increasing Chronological Age in Populations in the Wild, and Libertini — An Adaptive Theory of Aging Based on Kin Selection.
 
View his Facebook page. Read his LinkedIn profile. Visit Programmed Aging Theory Info (in particular Aging Theories — Historical Chronology of Theories and Discoveries) and r-site.org.