The number of people aged over 65 is expected to double in the next 30 years. For many, living longer will mean spending more years with the burdens of chronic diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes. Although researchers have made rapid progress in developing geroprotective interventions that target mechanisms of aging and delay or prevent the onset of multiple concurrent age-related diseases, a lack of standardized techniques to assess healthspan in preclinical murine studies has resulted in reduced reproducibility and slow progress. To overcome this, major centers in Europe and the United States skilled in healthspan analysis came together to agree on a toolbox of techniques that can be used to consistently assess the healthspan of mice. Here, we describe the agreed toolbox, which contains protocols for echocardiography, novel object recognition, grip strength, rotarod, glucose tolerance test (GTT) and insulin tolerance test (ITT), body composition, and energy expenditure. The protocols can be performed longitudinally in the same mouse over a period of 4–6 weeks to test how candidate geroprotectors affect cardiac, cognitive, neuromuscular, and metabolic health.

预计未来 30 年，65 岁以上的人口数量将翻一番。对许多人来说，长寿意味着要在阿尔茨海默病、心血管疾病和糖尿病等慢性疾病的负担下度过更多年。尽管研究人员在开发针对衰老机制和延迟或预防多种并发年龄相关疾病发作的老年保护干预措施方面取得了快速进展，但缺乏标准化技术来评估临床前小鼠研究中的健康寿命导致可重复性降低和进展缓慢。为了克服这个问题，欧洲和美国擅长健康寿命分析的主要中心齐聚一堂，就可用于持续评估小鼠健康寿命的技术工具箱达成一致。在这里，我们描述了约定的工具箱，其中包含用于超声心动图、新物体识别、握力、旋转棒、葡萄糖耐量测试 (GTT) 和胰岛素耐量测试 (ITT)、身体成分和能量消耗的协议。该协议可以在同一只小鼠中纵向执行 4-6 周，以测试候选的 geroprotectors 如何影响心脏、认知、神经肌肉和代谢健康。