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Ageing

Too fast by mistake

Nature volume 444, pages 1015–1017 (2006)Cite this article

The intricate process of ageing involves numerous physiological pathways, together with genetic and environmental factors. Insight into this complex biology could come from studying a disorder that accelerates ageing.

Contrary to general expectation, human life expectancy in developed countries has not bumped into a ceiling, but continues to increase by around two years per decade1 — or five hours per day. The reason previous forecasts proved wrong is simple. It used to be assumed that the ageing process was programmed, that some inner clock set a limit to life. But advances in the understanding of evolutionary mechanisms, and the experimental dissection of the genetics of ageing and longevity, reveal that this is not so2. Instead, the genetic control of longevity comes through regulation of the body's survival mechanisms — those essential maintenance and repair processes that slow the build-up of the molecular and cellular faults that will eventually undo us (Box 1).

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  1. Centre for Integrated Systems Biology of Ageing and Nutrition, Institute for Ageing and Health, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE4 6BE, UK

    Tom Kirkwood

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  1. Tom Kirkwood
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Kirkwood, T. Too fast by mistake. Nature 444, 1015–1017 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/4441015a

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