Biomarkers of aging: from primitive organisms to humans

Leading biologists and clinicians interested in aging convened to discuss biomarkers of aging. The goals were to come to a consensus, construct an agenda for future research, and make appropriate recommendations to policy makers and the public-at-large. While there was not total agreement on all iss...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences Biological sciences and medical sciences, 2004-06, Vol.59 (6), p.B560-B567
Main Authors: Butler, Robert N, Sprott, Richard, Warner, Huber, Bland, Jeffrey, Feuers, Richie, Forster, Michael, Fillit, Howard, Harman, S Mitchell, Hewitt, Michael, Hyman, Mark, Johnson, Kathleen, Kligman, Evan, McClearn, Gerald, Nelson, James, Richardson, Arlan, Sonntag, William, Weindruch, Richard, Wolf, Norman
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aged
Aging
Aging - physiology
Animals
Biomarkers - analysis
Cellular biology
Grants
Humans
Pathology
Policy Making
Public interest
Scientists
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Summary:Leading biologists and clinicians interested in aging convened to discuss biomarkers of aging. The goals were to come to a consensus, construct an agenda for future research, and make appropriate recommendations to policy makers and the public-at-large. While there was not total agreement on all issues, they addressed a number of questions, among them whether biomarkers can be identified and used to measure the physiological age of any individual within a population, given emerging information about aging and new technological advances. The hurdles to establishing informative biomarkers include the biological variation between individuals that makes generalizations difficult; the overlapping of aging and disease processes; uncertainty regarding benign versus pathogenic age-related changes; the point at which a process begins to do damage to the organism, and, if so, when does it occur; and when to distinguish critical damage from noncritical damage. Finally, and significantly, it is difficult to obtain funding for this research.
ISSN:1079-5006
1758-535X