The increasing ageing of our societies is accompanied by a pandemic of obesity and related cardiometabolic disorders. Progressive dysfunction of the white adipose tissue is increasingly recognized as an important hallmark of the ageing process, which in turn contributes to metabolic alterations, multi-organ damage and a systemic pro-inflammatory state ('inflammageing'). On the other hand, obesity, the paradigm of adipose tissue dysfunction, shares numerous biological similarities with the normal ageing process such as chronic inflammation and multi-system alterations. Accordingly, understanding the interplay between accelerated ageing related to obesity and adipose tissue dysfunction is critical to gain insight into the ageing process in general as well as into the pathophysiology of obesity and other related conditions. Here we postulate the concept of 'adipaging' to illustrate the common links between ageing and obesity and the fact that, to a great extent, obese adults are prematurely aged individuals.
© 2016 The Authors. The Journal of Physiology © 2016 The Physiological Society.