Research Catalog

Title

Cheating time : science, sex, and aging / Roger Gosden.

Author

Gosden, R. G.

Publication

New York : W.H. Freeman, c1996.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xvii, 427 p. : ill.; 24 cm.

Summary

"The quest to prolong our youth has spurred numerous quack remedies and fraudulent claims, but it has also inspired serious scientific investigation, yielding important clues about the aging process and what might realistically be done to arrest it." "In Cheating Time, the acclaimed researcher Roger Gosden tells us what scientists have learned so far, particularly in the investigation of hormones and the paramount role they play in the aging process. As we discover, there may be a tradeoff between reproductive capacity and longevity; the hormones that govern our reproductive lives can turn on us in later years, when, paradoxically, we may suffer from a drop in hormone levels or from the cumulative effects of overexposure to these same hormones." "Drawing on his medical expertise, historical knowledge, and good humor, Gosden shares amusing anecdotes as he discusses fascinating theories and current research efforts that are giving us some good reasons to be optimistic. The trajectory of human life need not be one of inexorable decay and decline. While we cannot hope to attain eternal youth, we are in the process of discovering how to live longer lives in good health, how to extend our biological clocks a bit further, and how to cheat time."--Jacket.

Subject

• Aging
• Aging > Endocrine aspects
• Hormones, Sex > Physiological effect
• Aging > physiology
• Endocrine Glands > physiology
• Hormones > physiology

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

1. Mating madness. The quest for Antechinus -- Biological clocks -- The price of passion -- Sex and death -- 2. A dog's life. Brief lives -- The second law -- A bestiary of aging -- The three graces -- Evolution of life history -- 3. Old Father William. Prejudice and perception -- Life tables -- The slope of mortality -- The gender gap -- Disease and disability -- The enigma of age -- 4. Programmed senescence. Fires of life -- Free radicals -- Chips off the old block? -- Blighted genes -- Celluar immortality -- Death genes -- 5. The great trade-off. The decline of natural selection -- Fruitful flies -- Disposable soma -- 6. Brown séquard's elixir. Sexual pessimism -- Paris, 1 June 1889 -- Flow tide for organotherapy -- An old man's folly -- 7. The gland grafters. New glands for old -- Steinach's operation -- Goat-gland gospel -- Monkey-gland business -- Nemesis -- 8. Hormones come of age. Nostrums and potions -- A Chinese remedy -- The mysterious midwife of HRT -- The heroic age of hormone research -- Sex-hormones-friends or fiends -- 9. The meaning of menopause. The biological egg-timer -- The yin and yang of endocrinology -- Sexual asymptote -- 10. The shape of steroid action. Vive la Différence! -- Apples and pears -- Bushy beards and bald pates -- The dowager's hump -- 11. A very infertile species. Where the buck stops -- Germ cells -- good and bad -- Never too late? -- 12. Brave new age?

ISBN

0716730596

LCCN

^^^96030738^

OCLC

• 35159227
• SCSB-10204068

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library