Towards ‘Eternal Youth’ of cardiac and skeletal muscle

The dream of eternal youth, exemplified throughout history by several examples such as the Epic of Gilgamesh in ancient Sumeria ( Figure 1 ) in which the King of Uruk searches for a plant to restore youth, and the story of Dorian Gray in Oscar Wilde’s classical novel ( Figure 2 ), has captured the imagination of mankind, and continues to be a major target for research. This is stimulated by the fact that the recent increase in life expectancy has resulted in a massive increase in the percentage of “ageing” individuals in the community ( Figure 3 ). Ageing affects several organ systems, with two of the most crippling, involving cardiac and skeletal muscles. In this article we review the recent developments in these two areas.