title: Biomarkers of aging: from primitive organisms to humans.
abstract: Leading biologists and clinicians interested in aging convened to discuss biomarkers of aging. The goals were to come to a consensus, construct an agenda for future research, and make appropriate recommendations to policy makers and the public-at-large. While there was not total agreement on all issues, they addressed a number of questions, among them whether biomarkers can be identified and used to measure the physiological age of any individual within a population, given emerging information about aging and new technological advances. The hurdles to establishing informative biomarkers include the biological variation between individuals that makes generalizations difficult; the overlapping of aging and disease processes; uncertainty regarding benign versus pathogenic age-related changes; the point at which a process begins to do damage to the organism, and, if so, when does it occur; and when to distinguish critical damage from noncritical damage. Finally, and significantly, it is difficult to obtain funding for this research.
authors.affiliation: International Longevity Center-USA, 60 E. 86th St., New York, NY 10028, USA. robertb@ilcusa.org
authors.forename: Robert N
authors.initials: RN
authors.lastname: Butler
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sprott
authors.forename: Huber
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Warner
authors.forename: Jeffrey
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bland
authors.forename: Richie
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Feuers
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Forster
authors.forename: Howard
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Fillit
authors.forename: S Mitchell
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Harman
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hewitt
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hyman
authors.forename: Kathleen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Johnson
authors.forename: Evan
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Kligman
authors.forename: Gerald
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: McClearn
authors.forename: James
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Nelson
authors.forename: Arlan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Richardson
authors.forename: William
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Sonntag
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Weindruch
authors.forename: Norman
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Wolf
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D015415:Biomarkers / Q000032:analysis*; D006801:Humans; D011050:Policy Making; D012106:Research
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers