2026/06/09 by Naveh Raz, Yifan Yang, Glen Pridham +6 · 2 voices · 1 citation
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Environmental Science · #Climate change #Ectotherm #Environmental Toxicology and Ecotoxicology #Genetics, Aging, and Longevity in Model Organisms #Identification (biology) #Physiological and biochemical adaptations #Population #Work (physics)
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/s43587-026-01138-7
published in Nature Aging 6(6), 1330-1340 (Nature Portfolio)
openalex publication_date 2026/06/09 · openalex created_date 2026/06/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/27
Different species age in similar ways but their lifespans differ by orders of magnitude. It is not clear how these similarities and differences arise from the accumulation of damage that underlies aging. Does long lifespan arise from reduced damage production, increased removal or enhanced robustness to damage? Here we apply the saturating removal model—a stochastic model of damage accumulation and removal—and fit it to survival data from well-studied species. Several parameters have near-universal values including ratios of removal rate, noise amplitude and death threshold. The model parameter that best predicts lifespan is the damage production rate, which spans seven orders of magnitude. We identify two distinct aging regimes: ballistic aging where damage production outpaces removal, characterizing yeast, nematodes, flies and mice, and quasi-steady-state aging, where damage tracks a moving set point of balanced production and removal, characterizing humans, dogs, guinea pigs and cats. These results provide a mechanistic model-based basis of comparative aging that awaits experimental validation. Raz and colleagues fit survival data across species to a stochastic model of damage accumulation and removal. They report that damage production rate best predicts lifespan and reveal two distinct aging regimes: ballistic in short-lived species and quasi-steady-state in mammals.