Carcinogenesis and aging

Figure 2 illustrates a suggested mechanism of carcinogenesis. This scheme takes into account the effect of carcinogens at different integration levels: subcellular, tissue, and organism. Any of these levels may be age dependent. Age-associated changes in the activity of enzymes responsible for activation and inactivation of carcinogens, and variations in concentrations of lipids and proteins contributing to the transport of carcinogenic agents into cells, may play an important role in the modifying effect of age on carcinogenesis. The effects of age-associated changes in DNA repair need clarification. However, they are thought to exert a permissive influence on the age-associated rise in tumor incidence. It seems that proliferative activity of target tissues is the important modifying factor of carcinogenesis. Age-related changes of regulation at tissue and organism levels are also powerful factors in carcinogenesis modification. Age-dependent changes in the neuroendocrine system provide conditions for metabolic immunodepression and promotion of carcinogenesis. On the other hand, carcinogens per se (especially chemical and radiological) may intensify aging processes in the organism. Normalization, by drugs, of age-associated shifts requiring synthetic and energetic changes of a transformed tumor cells, and of immunological shifts, may exert both antitumor and geroprotective effects.