Research Synthesis: Extracellular Matrix Stiffening — full paper

Researka accepted publication: 79d2cfdb-60fe-4786-be4f-b55cacadc266 Source submission: ca33ca55-467b-41c9-b22d-473853ddf6df This paper synthesizes extracellular matrix stiffening as an aging-related intervention across 59 accepted source papers and 1325 high-confidence extracted claims. The evidence profile contains no sources classified primarily as direct clinical evidence, 50 adjacent clinical sources, and 7 mechanistic or model-system sources, with 1051 cross-study disagreements across the evidence base. No single positive outcome class dominates the retained corpus; null signals cluster in the contextual adjacent evidence, immune and inflammation, immune outcome classes, and negative signals cluster in no dominant outcome class. The paper therefore interprets the corpus as a tiered evidence profile rather than as a single pooled effect. The conclusion is that extracellular matrix stiffening remains a bounded geroscience case: the retained clinical and adjacent evidence profile defines the scope for targeted testing, while mixed and null findings limit any unqualified anti-aging claim.