Age-Related Disease: Moving Toward a Cure

Progress in curing age-related diseases has suffered from a lack of understanding of the fundamental aging process at the cellular and genetic levels. As Leonard Hayflick, the discoverer of cell aging points out, “The cause of aging is ignored by the same people who argue that aging is the greatest risk factor for disease.” A unified model of age-related disease needs to offer a framework for not only age-related human diseases – including the dementias age-related vascular disease, osteoarthritis, etc. – but for age-related dysfunction in other species as well. The model detailed here, focusing on cell senescence and the concomitant changes in gene expression and cell function, encompasses both human and animal disease and is consistent with all known clinical and research data, and is predictively valid. More to the point, it offers a novel point of clinical intervention that is feasible and has proven effective in human cells, human tissues, and in animals.