Recent increases in lifespan have not been matched with increases in healthspan, as we spend proportionally more time in poor health towards the end of life. The cost of this to society is immense and this has led to marked increases in focus towards understanding biogerontology. Biogerontological research has identified a number of ‘ageing mechanisms’ which are purported to drive the human body towards frailty and eventual death, and this model is now preferred to the previously accepted paradigms of ‘wear and tear’ and ‘ageing diseases’. An alternative to both of these concepts of ageing is the idea that ageing is a progressive loss of homeodynamic space, or a reduced capacity to maintain homeostasis. Allied to this, an interesting observation is that the systems of the body lose homeostatic reserve at different speeds, introducing a ‘convoy principle’. The convoy principle states that a convoy can only move as fast as the slowest truck in a convoy, and similarly the human body can only function as well as the worst performing system. This means that if one system ‘ages’ faster than others due to genetic or lifestyle factors, it can speed up the processes that lead to frailty or death. Using the example of adipose tissue, muscle and metabolic control this talk will discuss the contribution of ageing metabolic cells to whole body ageing, and how selectively targeting them may provide a useful tool in targeting the ‘slowest truck in the convoy’ and preventing or ameliorating frailty.