Envelhecimento: aspectos moleculares e suas implicações sobre o sistema cardiovascular

Abstract

The world's population over 60 years is growing rapidly, reaching 22% of the global population in the next decades. Despite the increase in the global longevity, individuals' healthspan needs to follow this growth. Several diseases have its prevalence increased by age, such as cardiovascular diseases, the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the worldwide. Understanding the aging biology mechanisms is fundamental to the pursuit of cardiovascular health. Aging is characterized by a gradual decline in physiological functions, involving the increased number in the senescent cells into the body. Several pathways lead to senescence, including oxidative stress and persistent inflammation, plus mitochondrial dysfunction and deregulated autophagy, leading to an energy failure, being ROS, AMPK, SIRTs, mTOR, IGF-1 and p53 essential regulators of the metabolic control, connecting aging to the pathways who drive to diseases. In addition, senescence can be induced by cellular replication, resulted from telomere shortening. Taken together, it is possible to draw a common pathway unifying aging to cardiovascular diseases, and the central point of this process, senescence, can be the target for new therapies, which may result in the healthspan matching the lifespan. Keywords: Aging; lifespan; healthspan; senescence; cardiovascular diseases; DNA damage; telomeres; oxidative stress; inflammation; mitochondrial dysfunction; autophagy; metabolism. 15