Vicious cycles and age-related diseases
Statistical data indicate that the mortality rates due to all major age-related diseases increase exponentially with age. The MIPT researcher hypothesized that the reason behind this self-aggravating disease progression is the indefinite repetition of reaction cycles, which increases the harm from the initially noncritical changes in the body manyfold. It is these cycles that prospective therapies might address.
“Age-related diseases in humans are nearly impossible to prevent, though the search for so-called geroprotectors continues,” said the paper’s author Aleksey Belikov, who holds a doctorate in natural sciences and is a researcher at MIPT’s Laboratory of Innovative Medicine. “The therapies that are being developed now aim to prevent disease progression.”
“Investigating the mechanisms behind age-related disease progression, one concludes that by the time the disease has been diagnosed, it is too late to address the triggering factors,” the biologist explained. “Apparently the most effective strategy is to interrupt the known vicious cycles by blocking certain stages in them. Drugs doing just that are already being developed.”
In his study, Belikov examined the mortality rates of patients with five most widespread diseases that tend to affect elderly people more often, leading these diseases to be widely regarded as age-related: atherosclerosis, hypertension, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. Mortality statistics are the most powerful and least biased tool for studying diseases, since they account for the natural progression of a disease under various life conditions across a large population.