My guest today is Dr. David Gems who is the Research Director at the Institute of Healthy Aging University College London and also and runs the C. Elegans Aging lab there.

We had a fascinating discussion talking about emerging paradigms in the theories of aging. We discussed the hyperfunction theory or the programmatic theory of aging which gives a better integrated understanding of the different theories of aging that have been presented such as damage accumulation, evolutionary, antagonistic pleiotropy. It has been assumed that molecular damage is always the cause of aging, but the programmatic theory of aging shows that that might not be the case. We also discussed his critique of the hallmarks of aging and how there should be a better paradigm for the aging field. Lastly, we also discussed how research from his lab on C. Elegans might explain some of the conflict around whether sirtuins affect lifespan and how C. Elegans also show versions of this programmatic theory of aging, which can give us a better understanding of how to study aging.