Aging Experts Clash Over Causes and Definition

Vadim N. Gladyshev and 80 colleagues surveyed the participants of the 2022 Systems Aging Gordon Research Conference to explore how researchers of aging perceive their subject of study. The authors found wide disagreement on fundamental questions, including "what is aging?" and "what causes aging?". The collected responses indicated that some of the 103 professors, postdocs, graduate students, industry professionals, and other experts in the survey saw aging as a demographic increase in mortality rate, while other respondents saw aging as a loss of function over time, while still other respondents saw aging as the accumulation of damage or an overall pathological decline. Some respondents saw aging as a normal developmental stage. In terms of when aging begins, some respondents saw aging as a lifelong process that begins as early as gametogenesis—when the gametes that will form the individual are made—while others saw aging as a process specific to adults. Some disagreements indicated a difference in perspective between those who see aging as something that happens to cells and those who see aging as a process that happens to organisms. There was no consensus on whether aging is a disease or not and respondents did not even agree on the question of whether the field ought to have a single consensus definition of aging. Yet behind the wide disagreement there were some implied points of agreement: aging exists; aging is a process; and aging is inherently deleterious. According to the authors, the field could benefit from considering its foundations to better move forward.