Marcadores de envejecimiento cronológico y patológico

Abstract

Ageing is a universal, intrinsic, progressive and deleterious process characterized by the general loss of organismal function and by a reduced ability of adaptation to changes, i.e. a worse homeostasis maintenance, which is accompanied by increased morbidity and mortality. Ageing is characterized by a high individual heterogeneity, by which members of the same group, with the same chronological age, don’t necessarily display the same rate of ageing, also termed “biological age”, which proves to be a better estimator of how the individual is ageing and of its life expectancy, than the chronological age.The theory of oxidation-inflammation postulates that ageing would be the result of chronic oxidative and inflammatory stress that would affect all cells in the body, but that its consequences would be greater in homeostatic systems (nervous, endocrine and immune). In addition, the immune system, due to its characteristic releasing of oxidative and inflammatory compounds to perform its function, could modulate the oxidative-inflammatory stress of the body and consequently the rate at which ageing occurs...