Quote Originally Posted by Ne-yo View Post
Why do we max out and expire somewhere around the 120 year mark?
Several causes have been determined to cause aging, but one of the most significant is the steady depletion of telomeres, which occurs during every single cell division. Telomeres are sort of like the plastic tips on shoelaces, but for your chromosomes. Once they're depleted to a certain level, your cells can no longer divide and repair themselves as efficiently. One effect of this is that skin cells not only stop dividing, but start producing compounds that break down collagen, resulting in wrinkles and other not so fun things. And then you have cholesterol building up in the arteries for a very long time and an increasing risk for cancer, just for starters. Add it all together, and with our current technology, humans have an expiration date that averages in the mid-70's to low 80's in most developed countries, and seldom exceeds more than 100 years.