By Miles Martin – UC San Diego Today –
Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine have published results that shed new light on an old question: what causes aging at the molecular level? Their findings, published in Nature Aging, describe a never-before-seen link between the two most accepted explanations: random genetic mutations and predictable epigenetic modifications. The latter, also known as the epigenetic clock theory, has been widely used by scientists as a consistent, quantitative measure of biological aging.
However, the new research suggests that the process may not be so simple.