Ageing in Context

The global population demographic comprising those aged 65 years and over is increasing and expected to continue to grow over the remainder of the 21st century. By 2050, the population aged >65 years in the European Union is projected to reach ~130 million. Despite the associated increase in human life span over the preceding 150 years, this has not been matched by a similar increase in health span (i.e. years of disease free living). Consequently, ageing populations present with more age-/lifestyle related diseases, including chronic kidney disease (CKD), cardiovascular disease (CVD), type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, cancer, and neurodegenerative disorders. This ‘diseasome of ageing’ has major clinical and socio-economic impacts on public health care across countries, raising challenges in terms of health equality and sustainability for healthcare provision.

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The Provenance of Glasgow

The city of Glasgow is characterized by the largest age-related health disparity in the developed world. The concept of frailty, its effects on health outcomes and its social patterning, was first developed in Glasgow by Bernard Isaacs and described in his seminal text 'Survival of the unfittest'.

Research from G3 has already been seminal in identifying environmental factors, such as social deprivation, affecting ageing and health span tied to imbalanced nutrition and phosphataemia. Furthermore, it has provided the first evidence that this is reflected in differential age-related epigenetic status between those at high and low socio-economic position and that this in turn is linked to differential ageing and microbiome composition between these respective groups. Additionally, Glasgow has pioneered development of biomarkers to track the normative ageing process using kidney transplants as a source of healthy tissue whose longitudinal function can be tracked in real time

Our Aim: A holistic approach to Geroscience

To understand and target interventions to mitigate the effects of an advancing ageing process and the resultant ‘diseasome of ageing’.

Our Goal: A holistic approach to Geroscience

To undertake a cross disciplinary life course approach to understanding the ageing process, mitigating its detrimental  effects and developing suitable( pharmacological and non-pharmacological) interventions  to improve healthspan .

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