[Problems of the assessment of biological age (author's transl)]

Biological age may be defined at the state of the organism as a whole which is characteristic of the respective chronological age. Usually, it is estimated by multivariate analysis of a battery of age parameters. However, this procedure requires the knowledge of the regularities of multicellular ageing since interferences about the behaviour of the total system from its subsystems may only drawn when the regularities of the total system are understood. By means of the ageing of the rat, the possibility is demonstrated to study these regularities by factor analysis. As a result, primary and system-specific secondary aging processes are postulated which are expressed to various extents in the individual age parameters.