Question: why do our cells die off?

Fiona Hatch answered on 21 Mar 2012:

There are many reasons our cells die off. There are probably too many reasons to explain but I will try list a few.

Firstly sometimes our genes age themselves (different to our bodies) and they tell the cell after a certain amount of time to die off. For example this happens in our skin cells where every few days the top layer of our cells die off and the newer ones take over from underneath.

Another reason cells die is because they get overloaded with too much and they end up bursting. This usually happens if they take on too much water for example – this rarely happens but does occasionally. Another way is when the cell starts leaking something called ions and these damage the inside of the cell and eventually causes it to die.

Other reasons also include being killed off my acid in our stomach, new ones are always been made so that the acid from our stomach does not escape.

Hope that gives you an idea of how complicated things are! Sorry i can’t name them all, the answer would be way too long 🙁