Indeed, the capacity to treat aging as a process requires this. Any measure of aging must be able to allow us to incorporate this dynamic feature of the aging process. One is the accommodation of change that occurs with time. There are two facets of this discussion that have not been explicitly addressed thus far. Finally, the need to evaluate potential therapies or interventions to extend this healthspan is yet another dimension. So-called healthy aging derives from this approach. The second attempts to relate an aging process to the ability to function. This has long been a domain of aging research, and it continues to engage biodemographers. In other words, we want to be able to relate a process, aging, to an outcome, longevity. The first incorporates prediction of survival or mortality. The dimensions of aging encompass at least three different aspects. Nevertheless, we would like to be able to reference such objective measures to examine in greater detail the dimensions of aging. Subjective evaluation of age rather accurately assesses the ravages of time and coincides quite adequately to more objective metrics ( Christensen et al., 2009). What this really means is that the perceived age may vary from the actual chronological age, based on the usual presentation of individuals at a given calendar age in any given time and place. The deficit/frailty index may account for at least part of the departure at older ages of the observed mortality in the population from the exponential increase modeled by the Gompertz equation.Įven to the untrained eye it has always been apparent that different people age differently. They suggest declining connectivity within the aging network, at the cellular level. Specific DNA methylation changes are associated with biological age.
The gut microbiome loses complexity in tandem with the host, as biological age increases, with likely impact on host metabolism and immunity. Different aspects of mitochondrial function appear to be responsible in males and females. Application of the deficit index in human aging studies points to the increased energetic demands posed by an aging system that is losing integration. Among these methods, the deficit index possesses a theoretical basis grounded in systems biology by incorporating networks, with their emergent properties, to describe the complex aging system. Several approaches to quantify biological age have been utilized, including the use of biomarkers in the form of serum analytes, epigenetic markers, and deficit or frailty indices. The concept of biological age has been used more and more frequently in aging research in attempts to measure the progress of the biological aging process as opposed to the simple passage of time.
Tulane Center for Aging, Department of Medicine, Tulane University Health Sciences Center, New Orleans, LA, United States.
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