‘We may be programmed to die’

PEOPLE may be programmed to die before they need to, for the good of the human race, a scientist claimed yesterday.

The controversial theory turns Charles Darwin’s ideas about natural selection on their head.

According to the conventional view of evolution, selection picks out winners and losers in the survival game at an individual level.

The better suited an organism is to its environment, the more likely it is to reproduce.

But the new theory from Dr Valter Longo, an expert in ageing from the University of Southern California, hinges on the concept of “group selection”.

It suggests that ageing is no accident, but deliberately programmed. The idea is based on observations of baker’s yeast, a simple organism which nonetheless has the same molecular pathways regulating life span as mice and possibly humans.

“Basically, it is the first demonstration, to our knowledge, that ageing is programmed and altruistic,” he said. “The organisms we have studied die long before they have to in order to provide nutrients for ‘mutants’ generated within their own population.”

It was possible that a similar principle applied to humans, resulting in people’s lives being cut short.

Dr Longo, whose findings appear in the Journal of Cell Biology, said he realised his theory went against some of the fundamental tenets of Darwinian evolution.

He added: “We’re not saying Darwin was wrong. We’re just saying that there appear to be some big missing pieces in his theory.”