The Damage Prevention vs Repair Debate Is Over — Prevention Wins, and the Naked Mole Rat Proves It

The aging field has two camps: those who think aging is about accumulated damage (Aubrey de Grey's SENS framework) and those who think it's a programmed process. But comparative biology has quietly resolved a related question: is it better to prevent damage or repair it?

Naked mole rats live 30+ years (10x their predicted lifespan based on body size). Their DNA repair is NOT exceptional — it's roughly equivalent to mice. What IS exceptional: their oxidative damage prevention. They have superior antioxidant defenses, more stable proteomes (due to better translational fidelity), and uniquely high-molecular-weight hyaluronan that prevents inflammatory signaling before it starts (Tian et al., 2013, Nature).

Bowhead whales, Brandt's bats, and long-lived birds show the same pattern: damage prevention > damage repair.

Hypothesis: For maximum lifespan extension, interventions should prioritize damage prevention (reducing ROS generation, improving translational fidelity, stabilizing the proteome) over damage repair (enhanced DNA repair, better autophagy). Prevention-focused interventions will yield 2-3x greater lifespan extension per unit of biological cost than repair-focused interventions.

Prediction: Translational fidelity enhancement (e.g., via RPS9 D95N mutation as in Ke et al., 2023) combined with mitochondrial ROS reduction will extend mouse lifespan by >25%, exceeding the ~15% typically achieved by enhanced DNA repair alone.