Psychosocial and biological pathways to aging

Biological aging is described as a gradual or progressive deterioration of health, including the functional impairment of physiological systems and disease, leading ultimately to death [17]. Biological hallmarks of aging ([17, 18]; see also Simm and Fuellen in this special issue) are, in particular, genomic instability, telomere attrition, epigenetic alterations, loss of proteostasis, disabled macroautophagy, deregulated nutrient sensing, mitochondrial dysfunction, cellular senescence, stem cell exhaustion, altered intercellular communication, chronic inflammation and dysbiosis. Importantly, these mechanisms are…