Aging is inevitable, but some of the maladies we face may one day be mitigated, thanks to advancing knowledge about exactly what causes our bodies to decline with time.
The landmark 2013 Hallmarks of Aging study identified nine factors that contribute to health decline in advanced age: genomic instability, telomere attrition, epigenetic alterations, loss of proteostasis, deregulated nutrient-sensing, mitochondrial dysfunction, cellular senescence, stem cell exhaustion, and altered intercellular communication.
