Ageing hard or hardly ageing?

摘要

The potential rewards of understanding ageing are vast, yet the field remains greatly underexplored. Physiological changes in old age — ranging from poor wound healing and a compromised immune system, to cardiovascular problems — can reduce the quality of life for an ever-increasing fraction of the world's population. Reporting in Cell, Rudolph et al. now provide the first direct evidence that at least some of these changes can be caused by telomere erosion.