The imbalance between damage accumulation and repair in aging is caused by damage that accumulates early in life and cannot be repaired, which then accelerates the creation of other damage and impedes existing repair mechanisms.

“The answer is because of the damage that was accumulating early in life, throughout life, even starting before we're born, that we could never repair at all. That is the clock of aging, it's the accumulation of damage that we simply don't have any genetic capability to repair even when we're young. When that accumulates, it does two things. It accelerates the accumulation, the creation of other damage, and it also impedes everything about the body, including the damage repair mechanisms that we have. So we get less good at repairing the damage that we used to be good at repairing.”