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The root cause of aging is very straightforward: we age because our cells age.
In 1961, Leonard Hayflick, a researcher at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, discovered that there was a limit to the number of times a human cell could divide.1 After about 70 divisions, a cell derived from embryonic tissue enters a stage where its ability to divide slows and eventually stops. This stage is called cellular senescence. Hayflick also observed that the number of times a cell could divide was governed by the age of the cells: cells from a twenty-year-old could divide more times than cells from a fifty-year-old, which in turn would divide more times than cells from a ninety-year-old.
An interesting discussion on telomerase and aging. We are not yet sure whether attempting to increase telomere length, particularly with current available methods, is the answer to aging. There is some indication that cancer can be triggered by these efforts.
The research is promising, but we cannot yet recommend the therapies.