THE PHYSIOLOGICAL BASIS OF DORIAN GRAY’S PORTRAIT

Unfortunately or perhaps fortunately, aging is a natural process, associated with a gradual deterioration of biological and physiological systems (wear and tear) correlated to a chronic inflammation and oxidative stress that represent its specific hallmarks. This deterioration is the primary risk factor for major human pathologies, including cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disorders, and neurodegenerative diseases. There must be something both fascinating and intriguing about “old age” if, starting from the ancient greek and roman philosophers , poets and writers, up to our days’ authors, so many have literary and poetically investigated and looked into a future from which you cannot escape, that is old age. The rhetorical figure of the best-known literary scene on the human immortal hope to reach the myth of the eternal youth, is certainly represented by Dorian Gray. Today, the problem should be divided into two components: an "easier" one, linked to how you stay young, and a second (part) "a little '(sic) more complicated" one, referred to the processes that, by reversing the age-related mechanisms, allows the organs and tissues to recover the functional status of the age of twenty. This review will try to answer with scientific data and a bit of irony to this dilemma.