Long COVID as a disease of accelerated biological aging: An opportunity to translate geroscience interventions

It has been four years since long COVID—the protracted consequences that survivors of COVID-19 face—was first described. Yet, this entity continues to devastate the quality of life of an increasing number of COVID-19 survivors without any approved therapy and a paucity of clinical trials addressing its biological root causes. Notably, many of the symptoms of long COVID are typically seen with advancing age. Leveraging this similarity, we posit that Geroscience—which aims to target the biological drivers of aging to prevent age-associated conditions as a group—could offer promising therapeutic avenues for long COVID. Bearing this in mind, this review presents a translational framework for studying long COVID as a state of effectively accelerated biological aging, identifying research gaps and offering recommendations for future preclinical and clinical studies.