The Nation: No Telling How Old Is Old

Old age is an incurable disease.

—Seneca For all of medicine's skills, one thing has not changed since Seneca's day. Old age is as inevitable now as it was 2,000 years ago. Despite jogging's obvious benefits (for some people), it can do no more than slow the decline of the heart and lungs. The most conscientious exercises, careful diet and cautious life-style cannot halt the gradual hardening of the arteries, or prevent the reduced output of critical hormones, or bring a cessation to the wholesale death of brain cells. Such holding actions as face-lifts and skin treatments are ultimately futile. They do...

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