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Radical medicine: treating ageing to cure disease

Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology volume 6, pages 971–976 (2005)Cite this article

Abstract

The incidence of many diseases rises sharply with age. Although clearly separable, ageing and certain age-related diseases might share common mechanisms. Cellular metabolism and subsequent generation of reactive oxygen species might contribute both to the rate at which we age and to our susceptibility to numerous chronic diseases, therefore therapies that directly target the ageing process might provide new ways to treat human diseases.

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Figure 1: Disease-specific death rates as a function of age.
Figure 2: Potential role for reactive oxygen species in the pathogenesis of diseases involving protein aggregation.
Figure 3: A role for reactive oxygen species in cancer biology.
Figure 4: A model for mitochondrial oxidants.

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Acknowledgements

I am grateful to members of my laboratory for useful suggestions, in particular, to I. Rovira for help with this manuscript. This work was supported by intramural National Institutes of Health funding.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Chief of the Cardiovascular Branch ofthe National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, 10 Center Drive, Bethesda, 20892, Maryland, USA

    Toren Finkel

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Related links

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DATABASES

Entrez Gene

Sod2

OMIM

ALS

Alzheimer's disease

Parkinson's disease

Swiss-Prot

α-synuclein

APP

ATM

JunD

parkin

peroxiredoxin I

PINK1

Ras

seladin-1

SIRT1

SIRT3

SOD1

FURTHER INFORMATION

National Center for Health Statistics (US)

Toren Finkel's laboratory

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Finkel, T. Radical medicine: treating ageing to cure disease. Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol 6, 971–976 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrm1763

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