Nature aging

Aging patterns vary across human tissues and show coordinated decline

Updated

Abstract

Analysis of 25,306 post-mortem biopsies reveals distinct patterns of organ structural aging across various tissues in individuals aged 21-70 years.

  • Organ structural aging progresses along unique, nonlinear paths for different tissues.
  • Vascular tissue shows early acceleration in structural aging, while uterus and vagina accelerate later, around menopause.
  • Some tissues, like those in the digestive and male reproductive systems, exhibit biphasic accelerations in aging.
  • Increased inflammation is observed alongside decreased energy production, repair, and quality control as structural aging accelerates.
  • Cross-organ analysis indicates a coordinated deterioration among tissues within individuals, influenced by sex hormones.

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Full Text

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Funding

Competing interests

Competing interests: A.Y. and S.S. are named inventors on US Provisional Patent Application No. 63/887,350, filed on 24 September 2025, titled ‘Mapping structural aging across human tissues reveals tissue-specific trajectories, coordinated deterioration and genetic determinants’. The patent application relates to methods and findings described in this manuscript. The other authors declare no competing interests.
PubMed

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