Because growth hormone levels go down as we get older, contributing to loss of muscle mass and bone density, the investigators systematically compared the gene expression pattern of their progeroid mice to normal old mice to look for other similarities. What they found was a striking similarity pattern between the progeroid and normal-aged mice in several key pathways.

Indeed, for genes that influence the growth hormone pathway, there was a greater than 95 percent correlation in changes in gene expression between the DNA repair-deficient mice and old mice. And, remarkably, there was a near 90 percent correlation between all other pathways affected in the progeroid mice and the older mice.

"Because there were such high correlations between these pathways in progeroid and normal older mice, we are quite confident that DNA damage plays a significant role in promoting the aging process. The bottom line is that avoiding or reducing DNA damage caused by sources such as sunlight and cigarette smoke, as well as by our own metabolism, also could delay aging," explained Dr. Niedernhofer.