Research

Hormonal

Natural aging in mice correlates genome-wide with progeroid (accelerated) aging models, but not with long-lived models, indicating that natural aging resembles biological age markers of damage rather than longevity assurance.

Your body's gene expression as you age naturally looks more like accelerated aging (progeria) than like the healthy, long-lived state. This suggests that standard aging involves a 'survival' response to damage. Interventions that extend lifespan (like calorie restriction) may work by decoupling this survival response from the aging process.

GoodQualifiesHIGH confidence
Thus, endocrine and metabolic changes are indicative of ‘‘survival’’ responses to genotoxic stress or starvation, whereas genome-wide associations in gene expression with natural aging are indicative of biological age, which may thus delineate pro- and anti-aging effects of treatments aimed at health-span extension.
Björn Schumacher et al. · PLoS Genetics · 2008

Why this rating

Strong correlation data across multiple organs and age points.

Source

Delayed and Accelerated Aging Share Common Longevity Assurance Mechanisms

Björn Schumacher et al. · PLoS Genetics · 2008

DOI 10.1371/journal.pgen.1000161

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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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