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ScienceDirect provides free access to the contents of the latest issue of Aging Research Reviews. Have a look through; it's a good way to gain an impression of the state of aging research today.
As the average human life expectancy has increased, so too has the impact of ageing and age-related disease on ou society. Ageing research is now the focus of thousands of laboratories that include leaders in the areas of genetics, molecular and cellular biology, biochemistry, and behaviour. Ageing Research Reviews (ARR) covers the trends in this field. It is designed to fill a large void, namely, a source for critical reviews and viewpoints on emerging findings on mechanisms of ageing and age-related disease. Rapid advances in understanding of mechanisms that control cellular proliferation, differentiation and survival are leading to new insight into the regulation of ageing. From telomerase to stem cells to energy and oxyradical metabolism, this is an exciting new era in the multidisciplinary field of ageing research. The cellular and molecular underpinnings of manipulations that extend lifespan, such as caloric restriction, are being identified and novel approaches for preventing age-related diseases are being developed. ARR publishes articles on focussed topics selected from the broad field of ageing research, with an emphasis on cellular and molecular mechanisms of the aging process and age-related diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and neurodegenerative disorders. Applications of basic ageing research to lifespan extension and disease prevention are also covered in this journal.
In particular, you might find "Lessons learned from gene expression profile studies of aging and caloric restriction" to be an interesting paper. Joao de Magalhaes also has a paper in the latest issue, entitled "Open-minded scepticism: inferring the causal mechanisms of human ageing from genetic perturbations":
Given the myriad of age-related changes and the many proposed mechanistic theories of ageing, a major problem in gerontology is distinguishing causes from effects. This review aims to identify and evaluate those mechanisms which have gathered experimental support in favour of seeing them as a cause rather than an effect of ageing. Recent results related to energy metabolism and ageing, the free radical and the DNA damage theories of ageing are reviewed and their predictions evaluated through a systems biology rationale. Crucial in this approach are genetic manipulations in animal models that enable researchers to discriminate causes from effects of ageing and focus on the causal structure of human ageing. Based on a system-level interpretation, the GH/IGF-1 axis appears the most likely explanation for caloric restriction and a possible causal mechanism of human ageing. Although much work remains to fully understand the human ageing process, there is little evidence that free radicals are a causal factor in mammalian ageing, though they may be involved in signalling pathways related to ageing. On the other hand, studying how the DNA machinery affects ageing appears a promising avenue for disclosing the human ageing process.
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Posted by Reason
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