21. Naked Mole Rats Show that Aging and Mortality Acceleration Can be Uncoupled

Naked mole rats are extraordinary mammals, as they are eusocial, cannot maintain stable body temperature, show resistance to cancer and have many other remarkable features (40–42). However, what is most striking is that, despite being mouse-sized rodents, they are the longest-lived rodents with lifespan exceeding 40 y. Naked mole rats show that organisms can age (accumulate damage and other molecular and physiological changes) (43, 44) while displaying little to no age-dependent increase in adult mortality in available captive cohorts (45). Their deleteriome accumulation is slower than in other rodents and is buffered by unusually strong maintenance systems, so that failure thresholds are not reached for decades. A lesson is that aging and the acceleration of mortality risk can be uncoupled, and the same underlying burden can translate into different hazard trajectories depending on system robustness.