title: Measures and markers of biological aging: 'a great clamoring ... of fleeting significance'.
abstract: In response to Dean and Morgan (1988), we review our position on approaches to functional or biological aging. Researchers have attempted to assess an hypothesized underlying 'rate of aging' by combining information from the functioning of several different physical or psychological systems. None of these attempts has yet demonstrated success; because many different processes contribute to what we call 'aging', the concept of a single biological age is itself probably fundamentally flawed. We advocate more sophisticated interdisciplinary and longitudinal research as the best hope for understanding and ameliorating the effects of aging processes.
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D006305:Health Status Indicators; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D012106:Research