Now, the complicated part of all this is that cellular senescence is a good thing—if a cell becomes damaged it could start to divide uncontrollably and cause cancer. One of the risks of using senolytics is that they could interfere with the processes that normally inhibit cancer growth if they target presenescent cells that could go either way—toward zombies or cancer. There are other problems. In rats, senolytics slow down the wound-healing process. None of the known senolytics are yet safe in humans. As one researcher says, “Everything looks good in mice and when you get to people that is
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