Abstract
Human life expectancy in developed countries has increased steadily for over 150 years, through improvements in public health and lifestyle. More people are hence living long enough to suffer age-related loss of function and disease, and there is a need to improve the health of older people. Ageing is a complex process of damage accumulation, and has been viewed as experimentally and medically intractable. This view has been reinforced by the realization that ageing is a disadvantageous trait that evolves as a side effect of mutation accumulation or a benefit to the young, because of the decline in the force of natural selection at later ages. However, important recent discoveries are that mutations in single genes can extend lifespan of laboratory model organisms and that the mechanisms involved are conserved across large evolutionary distances, including to mammals. These mutations keep the animals functional and pathology-free to later ages, and they can protect against specific ageing-related diseases, including neurodegenerative disease and cancer. Preliminary indications suggest that these new findings from the laboratory may well also apply to humans. Translating these discoveries into medical treatments poses new challenges, including changing clinical thinking towards broad-spectrum, preventative medicine and finding novel routes to drug development.
Highlights
The increase in life expectancy in human populations worldwide is a triumph of biomedical research
The improvement in individual health means that larger numbers of individuals reach older ages, and live long enough to suffer from ageing-related disease and loss of function
There is no well-oiled hierarchy of genetic regulation to ensure that ageing happens in the right tissues and at the right times. It is an unregulated side effect of the failure of natural selection to maintain function at the later ages that few individuals reach in nature (Partridge & Gems 2002a)
Summary
The increase in life expectancy in human populations worldwide is a triumph of biomedical research. There is no well-oiled hierarchy of genetic regulation to ensure that ageing happens in the right tissues and at the right times Instead, it is an unregulated side effect of the failure of natural selection to maintain function at the later ages that few individuals reach in nature (Partridge & Gems 2002a). It is an unregulated side effect of the failure of natural selection to maintain function at the later ages that few individuals reach in nature (Partridge & Gems 2002a) These theoretical and practical insights have led to the conclusion that ageing is likely to be a highly polygenic trait, since many genes are involved in assurance of survival during adulthood and in promoting fecundity. These findings suggested that, in principle, multiple aspects of the ageing phenotype could be simultaneously ameliorated by a single intervention, albeit, in the case of DR, a complex one
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callMore From: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
