Longevity, Aging and Cancer: Thermodynamics and Complexity

Abstract

From the perspectives of the thermodynamics of irreversible processes and the theory of complex systems, a characterization of longevity and aging and their relationships with the emergence and evolution of cancer was carried out. It was found that: (1) the rate of entropy production could be used as an index of the robustness, plasticity, and aggressiveness of cancer, as well as a measure of biological age; (2) the aging process, as well as the evolution of cancer, goes through what we call a “biological phase transition”; (3) the process of metastasis, which occurs during the epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT), appears to be a phase transition that is far from thermodynamic equilibrium and exhibits Shilnikov chaos-like dynamic behavior, which guarantees the robustness of the process and, in turn, its unpredictability; (4) as the ferroptosis process progresses, the complexity of the dynamics that are associated with the emergence and evolution of cancer decreases. The theoretical framework that was developed in this study could contribute to a better understanding of the biophysical and chemical phenomena of longevity and aging and their relationships with cancer.