August 3rd, 2026
Senescent cells accumulate with age and contribute to degenerative aging via their pro-growth, pro-inflammatory signaling. Even when less than 1% of all cells are senescent in a tissue, the signaling generated by those senescent cells alters the behavior of other cells for the worse, and is disruptive to tissue structure and function. When it comes to what to do about the burden of senescent cells in aged tissues, much of the focus is on the development of senolytic drugs that can selectively destroy these errant cells to some degree. The most popular alternative path is the development of senomorphic drugs that can suppress senescent cell signaling to some degree, but unlike the senolytic development community this cannot yet boast the large number of companies dedicated to producing novel drugs.
Just as there are a great many senolytic compounds in the small molecule libraries and even among presently approved small molecule drugs, there are also a great many senomorphic compounds. Quality varies widely, and, sadly, all too few outperform the effects of lifestyle choices on the burden and behavior of senescent cells. Those that do are relatively neglected by the medical and development communities because they are cheap and out of patent protection; there is not enough profit to be made to support the high costs of clinical trials. So even relative well-known senomorphics like rapamycin are far less widely used than they might be, and it is left to the very slow pace of the academic community to scrape up sufficient funds to conduct large-enough clinical trials to convince more physicians to prescribe for their patients.
