Therapeutic approaches to treat and prevent age-related diseases through understanding the underlying biological drivers of ageing

Lynne S. Cox

The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, 2022, vol. 23, issue C

Abstract: Demographic shifts in population age pyramids mean that older adults now outnumber young people in many developed nations. Poor health associated with older age presents significant challenges to individuals and societies, not least in spiralling health care costs. Advances in scientific understanding of biological processes that change with age have led to the identification of core hallmarks of ageing, including cell senescence and dysregulated nutrient sensing, that represent new therapeutic targets. Drugs developed to target these hallmarks, such as senolytic and senomodifying agents as well as mTOR inhibitors, have been shown to improve later life health in experimental models. Results from early-stage clinical trials suggest that these therapeutic approaches will be applicable to ageing humans, with significant potential to improve later life health. Investments into effective biomedical interventions targeted to ageing processes are likely to give very high yields, especially since clinical adoption of treatments for (or even prevention of) age-related diseases is possible within the next decade.

Keywords: Ageing; Healthspan; Lifespan; Age-related disease; Therapeutics; Senescence; mTOR; Senolytic (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I10 I18 J11 J14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212828X2200055X

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:joecag:v:23:y:2022:i:c:s2212828x2200055x

DOI: 10.1016/j.jeoa.2022.100423

Access Statistics for this article

The Journal of the Economics of Ageing is currently edited by D.E. Bloom, A. Sousa-Poza and U. Sunde

More articles in The Journal of the Economics of Ageing from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().