Why do human cells die?

This may damage surrounding cells. But there is another, tidier way to go - programmed self-destruction, or apoptosis. It seems that cells often choose to kill themselves. We now know that controlled cell death is crucial for normal human development and good health throughout life. Enlarge. read more

Human body cells die for one of two reasons. They either suffer some sort of environmental trauma that causes cell death suddenly and accidentally, or they kill themselves off in a planned, controlled process known as apoptosis. The latter scenario, it turns out, is very important to healthy human development and life. read more

If the organism as a whole is going to die, there is no point in any of its cells outliving it, except for the gametes that are the descendants of the germ line. So all cells in humans and other organisms have a clock, represented by the telomeres on the ends of the chromosomes. When these are worn away, the cell dies. read more