Rejuvenating views of the ageing process.

Commonly held assumptions about the ageing process have guided and directed research in this important area over many years. Recent evidence, however, from disciplines as diverse as molecular genetics, clinical epidemiology and demography, provide a direct challenge to the validity of many of these assumptions. So, the time is ripe to re-examine these assumptions about the ageing process and to rethink the scientific foundations of the field.