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Ageing, oxidative stress and cancer: paradigms in parallax

Nature Reviews Cancer volume 8, pages 875–879 (2008)Cite this article

Abstract

Two paradigms central to geroscience research are that aging is associated with increased oxidative stress and increased cancer risk. Therefore, it could be deduced that cancers arising with ageing will show evidence of increased oxidative stress. Recent studies of gene expression in age-controlled breast cancer cases indicate that this deduction is false, posing parallax views of these two paradigms, and highlighting the unanswered question: does ageing cause or simply permit cancer development?

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Figure 1: Pathways that are shared by oxidatively stressed and early-onset breast cancers.
Figure 2: Signalling pathways in oxidatively stressed and early onset breast cancers.

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Acknowledgements

The authors' work is supported in part by National Institutes of Health grants R01-AG020521, R01-CA71468, P01-AG025901, U54-RR024346/RL1-AG032113, P50-CA58207, and Hazel P. Munroe memorial funding to the Buck Institute.

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  1. Christopher C. Benz and Christina Yau are at the Buck Institute for Age Research, Novato, California 94945, USA.,

    Christopher C. Benz & Christina Yau

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Correspondence to Christopher C. Benz.

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Benz, C., Yau, C. Ageing, oxidative stress and cancer: paradigms in parallax. Nat Rev Cancer 8, 875–879 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrc2522

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