Research into aging is progressing, amid a focus on anti-aging. While genetic factors are known to be involved in aging, acquired factors such as environment and lifestyle also have a major influence, with some scientists attributing more than half of aging to them. The main acquired factor is the epigenome, which controls gene function through DNA methylation, among others. As epigenetic alterations play a key role in shedding light on the mechanisms of aging, efforts to investigate the inhibition of aging and treatments that regard aging as a disease look set to advance worldwide.