Kyriazis Marios
National Gerontology Centre, Larnaca 6021, Cyprus.
Curr Aging Sci. 2018;11(3):149-154. doi: 10.2174/1874609811666181025170059.
The question whether aging is a disease or not, has been asked by many professionals who are involved in the study of age-related degeneration. However, not only an agreement on this remains elusive, but also effective clinical treatments against human aging have not been forthcoming. In this Opinion paper I suggest that the complexity involved in aging is such that we need to remodel our thinking to involve a much more 'systems-oriented' approach. I explore four main principles which should be employed by those who are working on finding treatments against agerelated degeneration. First, I discuss the problems encountered in translating laboratory research into effective therapies for humans. Second, I propose that a 'systems-thinking' method needs to be more extensively employed, instead of relying exclusively on the current reductionist one. Third, it is submitted that we must learn from the history of life-extension research, and not blindly follow contemporary paradigms, which may lead us into yet more 'dead ends' with regards to therapies. Finally, I suggest that, we may need to employ certain universal notions and use these in order to gain insights into the mechanics of a possible therapy against age-related degeneration. Examples may be the principle of hormesis, those of degeneracy, exaptation, and others from cybernetic or systems science domains. By using this four-pronged approach we liberate our thinking from the shackles of existing common mistakes and fallacies, and we open the way for a fresh approach that may lead us towards entirely new paradigms for providing clinically effective therapies against agerelated degeneration.
许多从事与年龄相关衰退研究的专业人士都提出过衰老是否是一种疾病的问题。然而，对此不仅难以达成共识，而且针对人类衰老的有效临床治疗方法也尚未出现。在这篇观点论文中，我认为衰老所涉及的复杂性使得我们需要重塑思维，采用一种更具“系统导向”的方法。我探讨了致力于寻找针对与年龄相关衰退治疗方法的人员应采用的四条主要原则。首先，我讨论了将实验室研究转化为有效的人类治疗方法时遇到的问题。其次，我提议需要更广泛地采用“系统思维”方法，而不是仅仅依赖当前的还原论方法。第三，有人认为我们必须从寿命延长研究的历史中吸取教训，而不是盲目遵循当代范式，因为这些范式在治疗方面可能会使我们陷入更多“死胡同”。最后，我建议我们可能需要运用某些普遍概念，并利用这些概念来深入了解针对与年龄相关衰退的可能治疗方法的机制。例如，可以是应激适应原理、退化原理、扩展适应原理，以及控制论或系统科学领域的其他原理。通过采用这种四管齐下的方法，我们将思维从现有常见错误和谬误的束缚中解放出来，并为一种全新的方法开辟道路，这种方法可能会引领我们走向全新的范式，以提供针对与年龄相关衰退的临床有效治疗方法。
