TY - JOUR
T1 - A synopsis on aging—Theories, mechanisms and future prospects
AU - da Costa, João Pinto
AU - Vitorino, Rui
AU - Silva, Gustavo M.
AU - Vogel, Christine
AU - Duarte, Armando C.
AU - Rocha-Santos, Teresa
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by national funds through FCT/MEC (PIDDAC) under project IF/00407/2013/CP1162/CT0023. Thanks are also due, for the financial support to CESAM (UID/AMB/50017), to Portuguese Science Foundation (FCT) FCT/MEC through national funds, and the co-funding by the FEDER, within the PT2020 Partnership Agreement and Compete 2020. This work was also funded by FCT through SFRH/BPD/102452/2014 under POCH funds, co-financed by the European Social Fund and Portuguese National Funds from MEC .
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2016/8/1
Y1 - 2016/8/1
N2 - Answering the question as to why we age is tantamount to answering the question of what is life itself. There are countless theories as to why and how we age, but, until recently, the very definition of aging – senescence – was still uncertain. Here, we summarize the main views of the different models of senescence, with a special emphasis on the biochemical processes that accompany aging. Though inherently complex, aging is characterized by numerous changes that take place at different levels of the biological hierarchy. We therefore explore some of the most relevant changes that take place during aging and, finally, we overview the current status of emergent aging therapies and what the future holds for this field of research. From this multi-dimensional approach, it becomes clear that an integrative approach that couples aging research with systems biology, capable of providing novel insights into how and why we age, is necessary.
AB - Answering the question as to why we age is tantamount to answering the question of what is life itself. There are countless theories as to why and how we age, but, until recently, the very definition of aging – senescence – was still uncertain. Here, we summarize the main views of the different models of senescence, with a special emphasis on the biochemical processes that accompany aging. Though inherently complex, aging is characterized by numerous changes that take place at different levels of the biological hierarchy. We therefore explore some of the most relevant changes that take place during aging and, finally, we overview the current status of emergent aging therapies and what the future holds for this field of research. From this multi-dimensional approach, it becomes clear that an integrative approach that couples aging research with systems biology, capable of providing novel insights into how and why we age, is necessary.
KW - Aging
KW - Anti-aging therapies
KW - Biochemistry
KW - Biology
KW - Senescence
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U2 - 10.1016/j.arr.2016.06.005
DO - 10.1016/j.arr.2016.06.005
M3 - Review article
C2 - 27353257
AN - SCOPUS:84977614573
VL - 29
SP - 90
EP - 112
JO - Ageing Research Reviews
JF - Ageing Research Reviews
SN - 1568-1637
ER -