COMMENTARY: Foundational social geroscience: Social stress, reproductive health, and lifecourse aging across mammals

The fortunes and misfortunes of social life across the life course: A new era of research from field, laboratory and comparative studies

Social gradients in health and aging have been reported in studies across many human populations, and - as the papers included in this special collection highlight - also occur across species. This paper serves as a general introduction to the special collection of Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews entitled "Social dimensions of health and aging: population studies, preclinical research, and comparative research using animal models". Authors of the fourteen reviews are primarily members of a National Institute of Aging-supported High Priority Research Network on "Animal Models for the Social Dimensions of Health and Aging". The collection is introduced by a foreword, commentaries, and opinion pieces by leading experts in related fields. The fourteen reviews are divided into four sections: Section 1: Biodemography and life course studies; Section 2: Social behavior and healthy aging in nonhuman primates; Section 3: Social factors, stress, and hallmarks of aging; Section 4: Neuroscience and social behavior.

New Directions in Geroscience: Integrating Social and Behavioral Drivers of Biological Aging

ABSTRACT

The "geroscience hypothesis" posits that slowing the physiological processes of aging would lead to delayed disease onset and longer healthspan and lifespan. This shift from a focus on solely treating existing disease to slowing the aging process is a shift toward prevention, including a focus on risk factors found in the social environment. Although geroscience traditionally has focused on the molecular and cellular drivers of biological aging, more fundamental causes of aging may be found in the social exposome-the complex array of human social environmental exposures that shape health and disease. The social exposome may interact with physiological processes to accelerate aging biology. In this commentary, we review the potential of these insights to shape the emerging field of translational geroscience. The articles in this special issue highlight how social stress and social determinants of health are associated with biomarkers of aging such as inflammation, epigenetic clocks, and telomeres, and spotlight promising interventions to mitigate stress-related inflammation. For geroscience to incorporate the social exposome into its translational agenda, studies are needed that elucidate and quantify the effects of social exposures on aging and that consider social exposures as intervention targets. The life course perspective allows us to measure both exposures and aging biology over time including sensitive periods of development and major social transitions. In addition, given rapid changes in the measurement of aging biology, which include machine learning techniques, multisystem phenotypes of aging are being developed to better reflect whole body aging, replacing reliance on single system biomarkers. In this expanded and more integrated field of translational geroscience, strategies targeting factors in the social exposome hold promise for achieving aging health equity and extending healthy longevity.