ABSTRACT
Renal aging is a gradual process of degenerative changes in tissue structure and physiological function and is closely related to the occurrence and development of acute kidney injury(AKI)and chronic kidney disease(CKD). The cellular and molecular mechanisms of renal aging mainly include cellular senescence and reduced autophagy, and are regulated by nutritional factors.Promoting reasonable and moderate energy-and protein-restricted diets, strengthening the supervision of food additives and preservatives, cultivating safety awareness of residents, and strictly controlling the daily salt intake are potential nutritional intervention strategies to prevent and delay renal aging.Given the limited number of studies, there is an urgent need to further explore the effectiveness of the above strategies to provide a new evidence-based approach to formulating precise and feasible personalized nutritional intervention programs.
ABSTRACT
Aging is the gradual functional recession of the living tissues or organs caused by a variety of genetic and environmental factors together. Autophagy is a process of degrading cytoplasmic components mediated by lysosomes in eukaryotic cells. Kidney is a typical target organ of aging. Autophagy regulates renal aging. Decrease in autophagy can accelerate renal aging,whereas,increase in autophagy can delay renal aging. During the process of regulating renal aging,the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) and its related signaling pathways including the adenosine monophosphate activated protein kinase (AMPK)/mTOR,the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)/ serine-threonine kinase(Akt)/mTOR,the AMPK/silent information regulation 1 (Sirt1) and transforming growth factor β (TGF-β) play the important roles in renal aging. Regulating the key signaling molecules in these pathways in vivo can control renal aging. Some Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) and their extracts with the effects of nourishing kidney or activating stasis, such as Cordyceps sinensis, curcumin and resveratrol have the beneficial effects on renal aging and/or autophagy. Therefore,revealing the pharmacological effects of CHM in anti-renal aging based on the molecular mechanisms of autophagy will become one of the development trends in the future study.