Dramatic increases in human lifespan and declining population growth are monumental achievements but these same achievements have also led to many societies today ageing at a faster rate than ever before. Extending healthy lifespan (healthspan) is a key translational challenge in this context. Disease-centric approaches to manage population ageing risk are adding years to life without adding health to these years. The growing consensus that ageing is driven by a limited number of interconnected processes suggests an alternative approach. Instead of viewing each age-dependent disease as the result of an independent chain of events, this approach recognizes that most age-dependent diseases depend on and are driven by a limited set of ageing processes. While the relative importance of each of these processes and the best intervention strategies targeting them are subjects of debate, there is increasing interest in providing preventative intervention options to healthy individuals even before overt age-dependent diseases manifest. Elevated oxidative damage is involved in the pathophysiology of most age-dependent diseases and markers of oxidative damage often increase with age in many organisms. However, correlation is not causation and, sadly, many intervention trials of supposed antioxidants have failed to extend healthspan and to prevent diseases. This does not, however, mean that reactive species (RS) and redox signalling are unimportant. Ultimately, the most effective antioxidants may not turn out to be the best geroprotective drugs, but effective geroprotective interventions might well turn out to also have excellent, if probably indirect, antioxidant efficacy.
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July 2017
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This issue explores the molecular and cellular mechanisms which underpin the process of ageing. Guest Edited by Professor Tom Kirkwood, CBE and Dr Viktor Korolchuk of the Newcastle University Institute for Ageing and Health, the issue includes reviews on mechanisms involved in ageing include genome instability and redox stress as well as insights from systems biology and approaches for extending the human healthspan. - PDF Icon PDF LinkTable of Contents
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Review Article|
July 11 2017
Approaches for extending human healthspan: from antioxidants to healthspan pharmacology
Jan Gruber;
1Department of Biochemistry, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore
2Science Division, Yale-NUS College, Singapore
Correspondence: Jan Gruber (jan_gruber@nuhs.edu.sg)
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Barry Halliwell
Barry Halliwell
1Department of Biochemistry, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore
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Publisher: Portland Press Ltd
Received:
March 01 2017
Revision Received:
May 16 2017
Accepted:
May 17 2017
Online ISSN: 1744-1358
Print ISSN: 0071-1365
© 2017 The Author(s). Published by Portland Press Limited on behalf of the Biochemical Society
2017
Essays Biochem (2017) 61 (3): 389–399.
Article history
Received:
March 01 2017
Revision Received:
May 16 2017
Accepted:
May 17 2017
Citation
Thomas B.L. Kirkwood, Viktor I. Korolchuk, Jan Gruber, Barry Halliwell; Approaches for extending human healthspan: from antioxidants to healthspan pharmacology. Essays Biochem 11 July 2017; 61 (3): 389–399. doi: https://doi.org/10.1042/EBC20160091
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