Chapter 20 - Healthy Aging and Epigenetic Drugs for Diabetes and Obesity: A Novel Perspective

Abstract

Aging is a natural process; yet, it can be accompanied with a wide range of human disorders including diabetes, cardiovascular, and neurodegenerative diseases. Recent studies show that aging is associated with profound epigenetic changes resulting in altered gene expression. As these epigenetic changes can be potentially reversed, it offers exciting opportunities to alter the trajectory of aging and age-related diseases. Epigenetic drugs, targeted at modifying disease-specific gene expression, are therefore attracting growing interest. These classes of epigenetic drugs include histone deacetylase inhibitors, histone acetyltransferase inhibitors, protein arginine methyltransferase inhibitors, DNA methyltransferase inhibitors, histone demethylase inhibitors, and sirtuin-activating compounds. Here we highlight how some of these epigenetic drugs, which might be used to treat diabetes and obesity, can also target key epigenetic players in the regulation of aging to possibly delay, or even reverse, aging processes or lead to healthy aging.