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Fuellen G, Jansen L, Cohen AA, Luyten W, Gogol M, Simm A, Saul N, Cirulli F, Berry A, Antal P, Köhling R, Wouters B, Möller S. Health and Aging: Unifying Concepts, Scores, Biomarkers and Pathways. Aging Dis 2019; 10:883-900. [PMID: 31440392 PMCID: PMC6675520 DOI: 10.14336/ad.2018.1030] [Citation(s) in RCA: 42] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/30/2018] [Accepted: 10/30/2018] [Indexed: 12/30/2022] Open
Abstract
Despite increasing research efforts, there is a lack of consensus on defining aging or health. To understand the underlying processes, and to foster the development of targeted interventions towards increasing one's health, there is an urgent need to find a broadly acceptable and useful definition of health, based on a list of (molecular) features; to operationalize features of health so that it can be measured; to identify predictive biomarkers and (molecular) pathways of health; and to suggest interventions, such as nutrition and exercise, targeted at putative causal pathways and processes. Based on a survey of the literature, we propose to define health as a state of an individual characterized by the core features of physiological, cognitive, physical and reproductive function, and a lack of disease. We further define aging as the aggregate of all processes in an individual that reduce its wellbeing, that is, its health or survival or both. We define biomarkers of health by their attribute of predicting future health better than chronological age. We define healthspan pathways as molecular features of health that relate to each other by belonging to the same molecular pathway. Our conceptual framework may integrate diverse operationalizations of health and guide precision prevention efforts.
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Affiliation(s)
- Georg Fuellen
- Rostock University Medical Center, Institute for Biostatistics and Informatics in Medicine and Aging Research (IBIMA), Rostock, Germany.
| | - Ludger Jansen
- Institute of Philosophy, University of Rostock, Germany.
| | - Alan A Cohen
- Department of Family Medicine, University of Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Canada.
| | - Walter Luyten
- KU Leuven, Department of Pharmaceutical and Pharmacological Sciences, Leuven, Belgium.
| | - Manfred Gogol
- Institute of Gerontology, University Heidelberg, Germany.
| | - Andreas Simm
- Department of Cardiac Surgery, Medical Faculty, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.
| | - Nadine Saul
- Humboldt-University of Berlin, Institute of Biology, Berlin, Germany.
| | - Francesca Cirulli
- Center for Behavioral Sciences and Mental Health, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Italy.
| | - Alessandra Berry
- Center for Behavioral Sciences and Mental Health, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Italy.
| | - Peter Antal
- Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Budapest, Hungary.
- Abiomics Europe Ltd., Hungary.
| | - Rüdiger Köhling
- Rostock University Medical Center, Institute for Physiology, Rostock, Germany.
| | | | - Steffen Möller
- Rostock University Medical Center, Institute for Biostatistics and Informatics in Medicine and Aging Research (IBIMA), Rostock, Germany.
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Fuellen G, Boerries M, Busch H, de Grey A, Hahn U, Hiller T, Hoeflich A, Jansen L, Janssens GE, Kaleta C, Meinema AC, Schäuble S, Simm A, Schofield PN, Smith B, Sühnel J, Vera J, Wagner W, Wönne EC, Wuttke D. In silico approaches and the role of ontologies in aging research. Rejuvenation Res 2013; 16:540-6. [PMID: 24188080 DOI: 10.1089/rej.2013.1517] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
The 2013 Rostock Symposium on Systems Biology and Bioinformatics in Aging Research was again dedicated to dissecting the aging process using in silico means. A particular focus was on ontologies, because these are a key technology to systematically integrate heterogeneous information about the aging process. Related topics were databases and data integration. Other talks tackled modeling issues and applications, the latter including talks focused on marker development and cellular stress as well as on diseases, in particular on diseases of kidney and skin.
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Affiliation(s)
- Georg Fuellen
- 1 Institute for Biostatistics and Informatics in Medicine and Aging Research, Department of Medicine, Rostock University , Rostock, Germany
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