From the Guidelines
For understanding aging, I strongly recommend the article "the degree of frailty as a translational measure of health in aging" by Howlett et al. 1 as it provides the most recent and comprehensive insights into the complex biological process of aging. This article, published in 2021 in the journal Nature Aging, reviews how the degree of frailty conditions the development of late-life diseases and modifies their expression, offering a systems-level approach to understanding aging. The authors discuss how age-related damage and decline in repair result in cellular and molecular deficits that scale up to tissue, organ, and system levels, where they are jointly expressed as frailty. They also explore how the degree of frailty can help explain the distinction between carrying damage and expressing its usual clinical manifestations, and how studying people who live with frailty can provide insights into the diseases of old age.
Some key points from this article include:
- Frailty is a multiply determined, age-related state of increased risk for adverse health outcomes 1
- The degree of frailty can be used as a translational measure of health in aging, offering a way to quantify health in old age 1
- Measuring frailty can provide insights into clinical medicine and population health, and can help identify individuals who are more susceptible to adverse outcomes 1
- Frailty is seen as modifiable, even potentially preventable, making it a target of treatment 1
In addition to this article, other studies have also explored the role of diet in maintaining gut health and reducing the risk of age-related diseases, such as the study by 1 published in 2024 in the journal Gut Microbes. However, the article by Howlett et al. 1 remains the most relevant and recent study on understanding aging, and its findings should be prioritized in clinical practice. The study by 1 published in 2015 in the journal Aging Cell also provides valuable insights into the role of nutrition in aging, but its findings are less recent and less directly relevant to the topic of understanding aging than those of the article by Howlett et al. 1.
Overall, the article by Howlett et al. 1 is the most strongly recommended for understanding aging, as it provides the most recent and comprehensive insights into the complex biological process of aging.
From the Research
Understanding Aging
- Aging is a complex and multidimensional process that affects various physiological functions, activities of daily living (ADL), and quality of life (QOL) in elderly populations 2.
- The gradual and progressive age-related decline in hormone production and action has a detrimental impact on human health, increasing the risk for chronic disease and reducing life span 3.
- Successful ageing is a multidimensional concept that focuses on expanding functional years in later life, with a wider understanding of social and psychological adaptation processes in later life 4.
Definitions of Aging
- There is no common and accepted definition of ageing, highlighting the complexity and relevance of the ageing topic 5.
- Different conceptual models of ageing have been proposed, including Rowe and Kahn's successful ageing model, the World Health Organization's models, and the "Selection, Optimization and Compensation" Model 5.
- The World Health Organization (WHO) defines healthy ageing as a process of maintaining functional ability to enable wellbeing in older age 6.
Approaches to Healthy Aging
- The WHO has established priorities for healthy ageing, including supporting country planning and action, collecting better global data, and promoting research on healthy ageing 6.
- Positive lifestyle modifications, such as regular aerobic and resistance exercise programs and/or healthy calorically restricted diet, can favorably affect endocrine and metabolic functions and act as countermeasures to various age-related diseases 3.
- Targeted interventions and programs aimed at promoting well-being during ageing are essential, considering the complexity and multidimensionality of the ageing process 5.