Counteracting age-related VEGF signaling insufficiency promotes healthy aging and extends life span

More VEGF, more life—and health span Advanced aging is celebrated but its ill effects, deterioration at the cell, tissue, and organ levels, are not. Grunewald et al . provide evidence for the vascular theory of aging, which reports that age-related decrease of vascular function is a driver of organismal aging at large (see the Perspective by Augustin and Kipnis). Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) signaling insufficiency underlies this vascular insufficiency in aged mice. A modest compensatory increase in circulatory VEGF was sufficient to preserve a young-like vascular homeostasis, alleviate multiple adverse age-related processes, and ameliorate a host of age-associated pathologies in mice. —BAP