eprintid: 10056350 rev_number: 19 eprint_status: archive userid: 608 dir: disk0/10/05/63/50 datestamp: 2018-09-19 14:39:16 lastmod: 2021-09-17 22:23:39 status_changed: 2018-09-19 14:39:16 type: article metadata_visibility: show creators_name: Flatt, T creators_name: Partridge, L title: Horizons in the evolution of aging ispublished: pub divisions: UCL divisions: B02 divisions: C08 divisions: D09 divisions: F99 keywords: Science & Technology, Life Sciences & Biomedicine, Biology, Life Sciences & Biomedicine - Other Topics, NEMATODE CAENORHABDITIS-ELEGANS, LIFE-HISTORY EVOLUTION, FECUNDITY/LONGEVITY TRADE-OFF, AFRICAN TURQUOISE KILLIFISH, AGE-RELATED DISEASE, LONG-LIVED MUTANTS, GROWTH-FACTOR-I, NAKED MOLE-RAT, DROSOPHILA-MELANOGASTER, INSULIN-RECEPTOR note: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. abstract: Between the 1930s and 50s, evolutionary biologists developed a successful theory of why organisms age, firmly rooted in population genetic principles. By the 1980s the evolution of aging had a secure experimental basis. Since the force of selection declines with age, aging evolves due to mutation accumulation or a benefit to fitness early in life. Here we review major insights and challenges that have emerged over the last 35 years: selection does not always necessarily decline with age; higher extrinsic (i.e., environmentally caused) mortality does not always accelerate aging; conserved pathways control aging rate; senescence patterns are more diverse than previously thought; aging is not universal; trade-offs involving lifespan can be ‘broken’; aging might be ‘druggable’; and human life expectancy continues to rise but compressing late-life morbidity remains a pressing challenge. date: 2018-08-20 date_type: published publisher: BMC official_url: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12915-018-0562-z oa_status: green full_text_type: pub language: eng primo: open primo_central: open_green article_type_text: Review verified: verified_manual elements_id: 1582040 doi: 10.1186/s12915-018-0562-z lyricists_name: Partridge, Linda lyricists_id: LPART24 actors_name: Partridge, Linda actors_name: Wright, Michael actors_id: LPART24 actors_id: MWRIG83 actors_role: owner actors_role: impersonator full_text_status: public publication: BMC Biology volume: 16 article_number: 93 pages: 13 issn: 1741-7007 citation: Flatt, T; Partridge, L; (2018) Horizons in the evolution of aging. BMC Biology , 16 , Article 93. 10.1186/s12915-018-0562-z <https://doi.org/10.1186/s12915-018-0562-z>. Green open access document_url: https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10056350/1/12915_2018_Article_562.pdf