Introduction: Historical Development and Progression of Clinical Research on Ageing

Research on ageing has developed since Greek times. It had a very slow advance during the Middle Ages and a big increase in the Renaissance. Darwin contributed somehow to the understanding of the ageing process and initiated a cumulus of ageing explications under the name of Evolutionary Theories. Subsequently, science discovered a great number of genes, molecules, and cell processes that intervened in ageing. This led to the beginning of trials in animals to retard or avoid the ageing process. Alongside this, improvements, geriatric clinical investigations (with the evidence-based medicine tools) started to consolidate as a discipline and commenced to show the challenges and deficiencies of actual clinical trials in ageing; the COVID-19 outbreak revealed some of them. The history of clinical research in ageing has already begun and is essential to affront the challenges that the world will face with the increasing ageing population.