We cannot stop ageing. We can look after the life we have

Health care can sometimes buy us more time. Beauty treatments can change how we look. The most useful ambition is to preserve our ability to enjoy being alive.

There is an unavoidable fact beneath every health campaign, beauty advertisement and promise of rejuvenation: human life is finite.

We can treat diseases, replace damaged joints, improve our fitness and soften some visible signs of age. We cannot purchase a guarantee that we will remain young, healthy or alive indefinitely.

That need not be a depressing starting point. It can be a liberating one.

If we accept that our bodies require care and that time brings change, health becomes less about chasing an impossible standard and more about looking after the life we have.

We service cars, repair roofs and replace worn appliances. Our bodies deserve at least as much attention, although they are far more complex than machines and cannot always be repaired on demand.

Nature has no retirement notice

It is tempting to describe life as a simple sequence: we are born, grow, reproduce and eventually pass away.

But nature does not have a conscious plan, and the end of our reproductive years is not the end of our purpose. Parenthood is neither a requirement for a meaningful life nor the sole measure of human contribution.

People continue to care, teach, work, create and discover throughout later life. Experience has value that youth cannot instantly acquire.

Biologically, ageing involves the accumulation of damage at molecular and cellular levels. The World Health Organization explains that the resulting changes are uneven: age in years does not neatly predict a person’s physical or mental capacity.

There is no birthday on which everyone becomes frail, and no universal timetable for losing independence.

What are we trying to maintain?

A useful question is not simply, “How long will I live?” It is, “What would I like to remain able to do?”

Walk to the shops. Travel. Cook dinner. Hear a conversation. Read comfortably. Spend time with friends. Get out of a chair and move around the house.

These ordinary abilities can matter more than looking ten years younger in a photograph.

WHO’s approach to healthy ageing centres on maintaining the abilities that support wellbeing. It also recognises that someone can live well with health conditions when those conditions are appropriately managed. Perfect health is not the entry requirement.

Maintenance, in this sense, means protecting what helps us participate in life—and adapting when our needs change.

The unglamorous work has value

Much of the advice that supports health lacks the excitement of a breakthrough treatment.

Regular movement, a balanced diet and avoiding tobacco can help reduce disease risk and preserve capacity. Our surroundings matter too: safe places to walk, accessible transport and supportive communities help people remain active and involved.

Physical activity is particularly useful because it supports more than appearance. It can improve muscular and cardiorespiratory fitness, bone health and everyday function. For older people, strength and balance activities can also help reduce the risk of falls. Activity should suit a person’s abilities and health circumstances.

The point is not to turn every meal into a calculation or every walk into a performance test. Sustainable care has to fit into an actual life.

Nor should illness be treated as evidence that someone failed to maintain themselves properly. Genetics, disability, work, income, housing and access to care affect the choices people have. Sensible habits improve our prospects; they do not confer immunity from misfortune.

Health care and beauty offer different things

Medical care can prevent or treat illness, relieve suffering and sometimes extend life. It can also restore abilities that make daily life easier.

A cataract operation, hearing support or rehabilitation may be valuable because of what it enables someone to do. The benefit is experienced in ordinary moments, far beyond the consulting room.

Beauty products and cosmetic treatments generally make a different offer: changing appearance.

There is nothing inherently frivolous about wanting to look well. A haircut, skin care or a chosen treatment may be personally satisfying. But an improvement in appearance is not evidence that the whole body has become biologically younger or that life has been extended.

The American Academy of Dermatology recommends realistic expectations of anti-ageing skin products. It notes that results can be modest and that effective products exist across different price ranges. Sunscreen and moisturiser are useful basics; a high price is not a guarantee of a better result.

Before spending money, it is reasonable to ask what is being promised: healthier skin, a change in appearance, treatment of a medical problem—or a sweeping claim about youth itself.

Maintenance should leave room for living

There is a point at which the pursuit of health can consume the life it is intended to protect.

If every social occasion becomes a dietary offence and every sign of age becomes a defect to correct, we risk making wellbeing an endless examination.

Care can be more generous than that. It can include enjoyable movement, meals shared with others, appropriate medical advice and room for pleasure.

It can also include accepting help. Independence does not have to mean doing everything alone.

Why Nature Doesn't Build to Last: The Science Behind Evolution’s "Planned Obsolescence"

If you buy a smartphone today, you can expect its battery to degrade, its software to lag, and its hardware to become obsolete within a few years. In the tech industry, this is called planned obsolescence—the deliberate design of a product to ensure it has a limited useful life so consumers are forced to upgrade.

When we look at the natural world, it’s easy to assume Mother Nature is running the same corporate scam. Animals grow, peak, and inevitably wear down, succumb to old age, and die.

But does nature actually practice planned obsolescence?

The short answer is no—but it does practice something remarkably similar. Animals don’t break down because of a corporate conspiracy; they break down due to a brutal biological calculation known as evolutionary senescence.

The Ultimate Genetic Budget: The Disposable Soma Theory

To understand why animals age, you have to look at life through the lens of an energy budget. Every living organism has access to a finite amount of metabolic energy. This energy must be split between two competing interests: reproduction (passing on genes) and soma maintenance (repairing cells, fighting off disease, and keeping the body running).

According to Thomas Kirkwood’s Disposable Soma Theory, evolution is aggressively short-sighted. It cares entirely about reproduction.

If an animal spends 100% of its energy perfectly maintaining its body to live for centuries, but never reproduces, its genetic line ends. Conversely, if an animal pours all its energy into reproducing early and often, its genes flood the population—even if its body falls apart shortly after. Because wild animals face constant external threats like predators, starvation, and freezing temperatures, investing heavily in long-term bodily repair is a bad evolutionary investment. The body is disposable; the genes are not.

The Built-In Saboteurs: Antagonistic Pleiotropy

In manufacturing, an engineer might use a cheaper, inferior capacitor because it works perfectly fine for the three-year warranty period, even if it fails in year four.

In nature, this is mirrored by a genetic phenomenon called antagonistic pleiotropy. This occurs when a single gene controls multiple traits, offering massive benefits when an animal is young, but causing devastating damage when it grows old.

Consider a gene that accelerates bone calcification, helping a young animal heal broken limbs rapidly and survive predators. That same gene might cause fatal calcium buildup in the arteries later in life. Because natural selection operates most strongly during an organism’s reproductive prime, it aggressively selects for these genes. It ignores the late-life penalties because, by the time the damage kicks in, the animal has already successfully passed the gene down to its offspring.

Biologically Engineered to Break: Nature vs. Tech

While both modern tech and wild animals have a shelf life, the mechanics driving their expiration dates are fundamentally distinct:

Feature    Planned Obsolescence (Industrial)    Senescence (Biological)

The Primary Driver    Corporate profit and artificial repeat demand.    Maximizing genetic transmission before death.

The Mechanism    Inferior components or software lockouts.    Energy reallocation and genetic trade-offs.

The Beneficiary    The manufacturer.    The species' genetic lineage.

The Exceptions    Rare (most modern tech is built to expire).    Several (some animals exhibit "negligible senescence").

The Outliers: Nature’s Rule-Breakers

Just as a few rare consumer products are built to last a lifetime, nature has its own engineering anomalies that defy the standard aging curve.

1. The Literal Self-Destruct Button (The Salmon)

If you want the closest biological equivalent to a smartphone that bricks itself after a software update, look at the Pacific salmon. These fish are semelparous, meaning they breed only once. They use 100% of their bodily energy to swim upstream and spawn. The moment their eggs are laid, a hormonal cascade triggers total, rapid organ failure. They do not fade away quietly; they actively self-destruct.

2. The Forever Cells (The Hydra)

On the opposite end of the spectrum is the hydra, a tiny freshwater creature that is practically immortal. Hydras do not age because their bodies are composed almost entirely of stem cells that constantly divide and replace damaged tissues. Barring a predator or a dry spell, a hydra can theoretically live forever.
3. Negligible Senescence (Greenland Sharks & Tortoises)

Some complex animals, like tortoises and the Greenland shark (which can live up to 400 years), experience what biologists call negligible senescence. Their cellular functions do not measurably decline with age. A 200-year-old tortoise is biologically just as healthy and fertile as a 20-year-old tortoise. They rarely die of "old age"; instead, they succumb to accidents, pathogens, or predators.

The Times View

Your smartphone lags because a company wants your money. Your body ages because evolution prioritised your ancestors' ability to raise children over your ability to live forever.

Nature doesn't have a malicious blueprint for planned obsolescence. It simply runs a ruthless cost-benefit analysis where longevity is traded away for the survival of the species. We aren't built to break—we are simply built to pass the torch.

Accepting mortality is compatible with taking health seriously. It gives that care a purpose.

Health care may buy time, comfort or restored function. Beauty treatments may change the way we present ourselves. Neither makes human life unlimited.

Our most worthwhile investment is in the capacity to keep participating: to remain curious, connected and able to do the things that matter to us.

The aim is not simply to buy more time, but to remain able to enjoy the time we have..