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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2024 Jul 16.
Published in final edited form as: Nat Aging. 2023 Jun 29;3(7):766–775. doi: 10.1038/s43587-023-00447-5

Figure 1. Relationships between causes and consequences of the aging process.

Figure 1

Aging leads to changes at all levels of organismal complexity including damage accumulation, alterations of the extracellular matrix (ECM), inflammation etc. These and other changes lead to short-term responses and long-term adaptations of cells, allowing them to thrive and survive. A subset of these adaptations is “damaging”, i.e. with the negative consequences outweighing the benefits and leading in the long-term to the exacerbation of the aging process.