COVID-19 Review Volume 12, Issue 11 pp 10004—10021
From causes of aging to death from COVID-19
- 1 Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Buffalo, NY 14263, USA
Received: April 30, 2020 Accepted: June 8, 2020 Published: June 12, 2020
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.103493How to Cite
Copyright © 2020 Blagosklonny et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
COVID-19 is not deadly early in life, but mortality increases exponentially with age, which is the strongest predictor of mortality. Mortality is higher in men than in women, because men age faster, and it is especially high in patients with age-related diseases, such as diabetes and hypertension, because these diseases are manifestations of aging and a measure of biological age. At its deepest level, aging (a program-like continuation of developmental growth) is driven by inappropriately high cellular functioning. The hyperfunction theory of quasi-programmed aging explains why COVID-19 vulnerability (lethality) is an age-dependent syndrome, linking it to other age-related diseases. It also explains inflammaging and immunosenescence, hyperinflammation, hyperthrombosis, and cytokine storms, all of which are associated with COVID-19 vulnerability. Anti-aging interventions, such as rapamycin, may slow aging and age-related diseases, potentially decreasing COVID-19 vulnerability.