Molecular Connections of Aging and Cancer

Thanks to advances in health care, more effective therapeutic interventions, hygiene control and food availability, we have an improved human life expectancy in this era.Consequently, aging has become a significant risk factor for several diseases including cardiovascular disease, cancer, neurological disorders, diabetes, and obesity.According to the World Health Organization, life expectancy is now exceeding 80 years in most developed countries.The process of becoming older is a complex scenario influenced by the interaction of various genetic and environmental factors.While aging represents the single most significant risk factor for cancer development, based on the US National Cancer Institute's Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) Database, 43% of men and 38% of women will develop cancer over the course of their lives (1).Almost two-thirds of all new cancer diagnoses are made in persons over the age of 65 years, thus aging is making a larger proportion of people more susceptible to cancer (2).Aging is an inevitable time-dependent decline in physiological organ function and is a major player in cancer development.It is now clear that aging and cancer development either share or diverge in several disease mechanisms.Such mechanisms include the role of genomic instability, telomere attrition, epigenetic changes, loss of proteostasis, decreased nutrient sensing and altered metabolism.Current research on aging is mostly based on genetic studies in relatively short-lived organisms and animals.The biological basis of human aging is much more complex and thus animal models cannot fully capture the process of cancer development in the aging human being.Though cancer and aging are both complicated