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Telomeres

Ageing hard or hardly ageing?

Nature volume 398, pages 191–193 (1999)Cite this article

The potential rewards of understanding ageing are vast, yet the field remains greatly underexplored. Physiological changes in old age — ranging from poor wound healing and a compromised immune system, to cardiovascular problems — can reduce the quality of life for an ever-increasing fraction of the world's population. Reporting in Cell, Rudolph et al.1 now provide the first direct evidence that at least some of these changes can be caused by telomere erosion.

Why and how do we age? Ageing is a side effect of optimizing an organism's evolutionary fitness2. Because it affects so many different systems, however, it would be naive to expect a single cause or a central ‘clock’. The main factors in cognitive decline, for example, may make little contribution to cardiovascular degeneration. Many causes of ageing have been suggested, such as free-radical damage3, replicative senescence4 and mitochondrial dysfunction. But these complement rather than exclude each other, and data that support one in no way detract from the potential effects of the others.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. the Department of Pathology, University of Wales College of Medicine, Heath Park, Cardiff, CF4 4XN, UK

    David Kipling

  2. the Department of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences, University of Brighton, Cockcroft Building, Lewes Road, Brighton, BN2 4GJ, UK

    Richard G. A. Faragher

Authors
  1. David Kipling
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  2. Richard G. A. Faragher
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Kipling, D., Faragher, R. Ageing hard or hardly ageing?. Nature 398, 191–193 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/18306

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