In the past, a significant worry for parents was the childhood diseases that would affect or even kill their children. However, investment in microbial, immunological and pharmaceutical research has enabled cures and preventions for many of these diseases. Nowadays, the worry for parents is less for the diseases that could affect their children, but more for the diseases that will affect their own parents.

Longevity & Healthspan is a new journal from BioMed Central that published its first articles today. The journal welcomes research on all aspects of aging biology in the context of healthy aging or age-related disease. In the launch editorial, the Editors-in-Chief; James Kirkland, Gordon Lithgow and Janet Lord, expand upon the idea of the deadly diseases of the 21^st century being those that affect the older generation. They present the idea that the chronic diseases of late life may have a single or limited number of causes and ask “What if ‘broad spectrum’ treatments could be developed?”.

Among the set of articles published at launch is research by Colin Selman and Sarah Hempenstall, in which they present evidence of a metabolic memory to early-life dietary restriction in mice. Translating animal model research such as this into clinical research and having basic and clinical scientists collaborating to understand how aging is mechanistically related to disease, is of critical importance to the field. Longevity & Healthspan aims to encourage and provide a home for this research.

All articles published in the journal are open access – read the launch editorial and published articles online now. Submit your own research to Longevity & Healthspan and sign up for article alerts to stay up to date with new content published in Longevity & Healthspan.