Abstract
The widespread use of the name ‘geroscience’ in the science of aging is sometimes met with a wary attitude by biogerontologists other than its inventors. Here, we provide an overview of its origin and evolution to assess what exactly it is and to discuss its theoretical and biological relationship to earlier movements of anti-aging medicine and biogerontology more generally. Geroscience posits that targeting aging may offer a cost-effective approach to improve late-life health in humans, and because aging is malleable in model organisms and what regulates this is sufficiently understood, the time is ripe for moving forward to translational and clinical research. The geroscience agenda has rebranded imagery of past traditions, yet the claim that therapies for human aging are ready or within the imminent future is contestable and on brand with tradition, even if biogerontology has made great progress in the past decades.
Access this article
We’re sorry, something doesn't seem to be working properly.
Please try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, please contact support so we can address the problem.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Baker DJ, Wijshake T, Tchkonia T, LeBrasseur N, Childs BG, van de Sluis B, Kirkland JL, van Deursen J (2011) Clearance of p16Ink4a-positive senescent cells delays ageing-associated disorders. Nature 479:232–236. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature10600
Barzilai N, Crandall JP, Kritchevsky SB, Espeland MA (2016) Metformin as a tool to target aging. Cell Metab 23:1060–1065. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmet.2016.05.011
Blumenthal TH (2003) The aging-disease dichotomy: true or false? J Gerontol A 58:138–145. https://doi.org/10.1093/gerona/58.2.M138
Burch JB, Augustine AD, Frieden LA, Hadley E, Howcroft KT, Ron J, Khalsa PS, Kohanski RA, Li XL, Macchiarini F, Niederehe G, Oh YS, Pawlyk AC, Rodriguez H, Rowland JH, Shen GL, Sierra F, Wise BC (2014) Advances in geroscience: impact on healthspan and chronic disease. J Gerontol A 69:S1–S3. https://doi.org/10.1093/gerona/glu041
Burd CE, Gill MS, Niedernhofer LJ, Robbins PD, Austad SN, Barzilai N, Kirkland JL (2016) Barriers to the preclinical development of therapeutics that target aging mechanisms. J Gerontol A 71:1388–1394. https://doi.org/10.1093/gerona/glw112
Chaib S, Tchkonia T, Kirkland JL (2022) Cellular senescence and senolytics: the path to the clinic. Nat Med 28:1556–1568. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-022-01923-y
de Magalhães JP, Stevens M, Thornton D (2017) The business of anti-aging science. Trends Biotechnol 35:1062–1073. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tibtech.2017.07.004
Demetrius L (2005) Of mice and men. When it comes to studying ageing and the means to slow it down, mice are not just small humans. EMBO Rep 6:S39–S44. https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.embor.7400422
Gems D (2015) The aging-disease false dichotomy: understanding senescence as pathology. Front Genet. https://doi.org/10.3389/fgene.2015.00212
Gems D, de Magalhães JP (2021) The hoverfly and the wasp: a critique of the hallmarks of aging as a paradigm. Ageing Res Rev 70:101407. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.arr.2021.101407
Gems D, Kern CC (2020) Is “cellular senescence” a misnomer? Geroscience 44:2461–2469. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11357-022-00652-x
Gill TM (2019) Translational geroscience: challenges and opportunities for geriatric medicine. J Am Geriatr Soc 67:1779–1781. https://doi.org/10.1111/jgs.16056
Harrison DE, Strong R, Sharp ZD, Nelson JF, Astle CM, Flukey K, Wilkinson JE, Frenkel K, Carter CS, Pahor M, Javors MA, Fernandez E, Miller RA (2009) Rapamycin fed late in life extends lifespan in genetically heterogeneous mice. Nature 460:392–395. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature08221
Huffman DM, Justice JN, Stout MB, Kirkland JL, Barzilai N, Austad SN (2016) Evaluating health span in preclinical models of aging and disease: guidelines, challenges, and opportunities for geroscience. J Gerontol A 71:1395–1406. https://doi.org/10.1093/gerona/glw106
Justice J, Kritchevsky S, Kuchel G, Kirkland J (2020) The translational geroscience network: supporting a new paradigm to alleviate age-related chronic disease. Innov Aging 4:831–831. https://doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igaa057.3042
Kaeberlein M (2018) How healthy is the healthspan concept? Geroscience 40:361–364. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11357-018-0036-9
Kaeberlein M, Creevy KE, Promislow DEL (2016) The dog aging project: translational geroscience in companion animals. Mamm Genome 27:279–288. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00335-016-9638-7
Kennedy BK, Berger SL, Brunet A, Campisi J, Cuervo AM, Epel ES, Franceschi C, Lithgow GJ, Morimoto RI, Pessin JE, Rando TA, Richardson A, Schadt EE, Wyss-Coray T, Sierra F (2014) Geroscience: linking aging to chronic disease. Cell 159:709–713. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2014.10.039
Kenyon CJ (2010) The genetics of ageing. Nature 464:504–512. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature08980
Kern C, Srivastava S, Ezcurra M, Hsiung KC, Hui N, Townsend J, Maczik D, Zhang B, Tse V, Konstantellos V, Bähler J, Gems D (2023) C. elegans ageing is accelerated by a self-destructive reproductive programme. Nat Commun 14:4381. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-40088-1
Kowald A, Passos JF, Kirkwood TBL (2020) On the evolution of cellular senescence. Aging Cell 19:e13270. https://doi.org/10.1111/acel.13270
Kritchevsky SB, Justice JN (2020) Testing the geroscience hypothesis: early days. J Gerontol A 75:99–101. https://doi.org/10.1093/gerona/glz267
Kulkarni AS, Aleksic S, Berger DM, Sierra F, Kuchel GA, Barzilai N (2022) Geroscience-guided repurposing of FDA-approved drugs to target aging: a proposed process and prioritization. Aging Cell. https://doi.org/10.1111/acel.13596
Le Bourg E (2016) The somatotropic axis may not modulate ageing and longevity in humans. Biogerontology 14:421–429. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10522-015-9632-6
Le Bourg E (2022) Geroscience: the need to address some issues. Biogerontology 23:145–150. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10522-022-09951-4
López-Otín C, Blasco MA, Partridge L, Serrano M, Kroemer G (2013) The hallmarks of aging. Cell 153:1194–1217. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2013.05.039
Martin GM (2017) Geroscience: addressing the mismatch between its exciting research opportunities, its economic imperative and its current funding crisis. Exp Gerontol 94:46–51. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exger.2016.11.008
Masoro EJ (2005) Overview of caloric restriction and ageing. Mech Ageing Dev 126:913–922. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mad.2005.03.012
Mattison JA, Roth GS, Beasley TM, Tilmont EM, Handy AM, Herbert RL, Longo DL, Allison DB, Young JE, Bryant M, Barnard D, Ward WF, Qi W, Ingram DK, de Cabo R (2012) Impact of caloric restriction on health and survival in rhesus monkeys from the NIA study. Nature 489:318–321. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature11432
Mykytyn CE (2006) Contentious terminology and complicated cartography of anti-aging medicine. Biogerontology 7:279–285. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10522-006-9016-z
Newman JC, Milman S, Hashmi SK, Austad SN, Kirkland JL, Halter JB, Barzilai N (2016) Strategies and challenges in clinical trials targeting human aging. J Gerontol A 71:1424–1423. https://doi.org/10.1093/gerona/glw149
Newman JC, Sokoloski JL, Robbins PD, Niedernhofer LJ, Reed MJ, Wei J, Austad SN, Barzilai N, Cohen HJ, Kuchel GA, Kirkland JL, Pignolo RJ (2019) Creating the next generation of translational geroscientists. J Am Geriatr Soc 67:1934–1939. https://doi.org/10.1111/jgs.16055
Olshansky SJ, Hayflick L, Carnes BA (2002) Position statement on human aging. J Gerontol A 56:B292-297. https://doi.org/10.1093/gerona/57.8.B292
Promislow DEL (2020) A geroscience perspective on COVID-19 mortality. J Gerontol A 75:e30–e33. https://doi.org/10.1093/gerona/glaa094
Rattan SIS (2000) Biogerontology: the next step. Ann N Y Acad Sci 908:282–290. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-6632.2000.tb06655.x
Rattan SIS (2014) Aging is not a disease: implications for intervention. Aging Dis 5:196–202. https://doi.org/10.14336/AD.2014.0500196
Rattan SIS (2020) Naive extrapolations, overhyped claims and empty promises in ageing research and interventions need avoidance. Biogerontology 21:415–421. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10522-019-09851-0
Rattan SIS (2024) Seven knowledge gaps in modern biogerontology. Biogerontology 25:1–8. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10522-023-10089-0
Rolland Y, Sierra F, Luigi F, Barzilai N, De Cabo R, Mannick J, Oliva A, Evans W, Angioni D, De Souto BP, Raffin J, Vellas B, Kirkland JL, the G.C.T-TF group (2023) Challenges in developing geroscience trials. Nat Commun 14:5038. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-39786-7
Seals DR, Justice JN, LaRocca TJ (2016) Physiological geroscience: targeting function to increase healthspan and achieve optimal longevity: translational physiology of ageing. J Physiol 594:2001–2024. https://doi.org/10.1113/jphysiol.2014.282665
Sierra F (2016) The emergence of geroscience as an interdisciplinary approach to the enhancement of health span and life span. Cold Spring Harb Perspect Med 6:a025163. https://doi.org/10.1101/cshperspect.a025163
Sierra F, Kohanski R (2017) Geroscience and the trans-NIH Geroscience Interest Group, GSIG. GeroScience 39:1–5. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11357-016-9954-6
Sholl J (2017) The muddle of medicalization: pathologizing or medicalizing? Theor Med Bioeth 38:265–278. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11017-017-9414-z
Sonntag WE, Ungvari Z (2016) GeroScience: understanding the interaction of processes of aging and chronic diseases. Age 38:377–378. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11357-016-9953-7
Stambler I (2020) History of life-extensionism. In: Rattan SIS, Barbagallo M, Le Bourg E (eds) Encyclopedia of biomedical gerontology, vol 2. Academic Press, London, pp 228–237
Zerhouni E (2003) The NIH roadmap. Science 302:63–72. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1091867
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The author declares no competing interests.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Okholm, S. Geroscience: just another name or is there more to it?. Biogerontology (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10522-024-10105-x
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10522-024-10105-x