Feature Channels: Aging

• share
• favorite_border

Midwest Orthopaedics at Rush physicians find arthroscopic surgery to be effective, especially in those under 45.

• share
• favorite_border

ROCHESTER, Minn. — The incidence of Parkinson’s disease and parkinsonism increased significantly in 30 years from 1976 to 2005, Mayo Clinic researchers reported today in a study in JAMA Neurology. This trend was noted in particular for men age 70 and older. According to the researchers, this is the first study to suggest such an increasing trend.

• share
• favorite_border

Exercise may have some surprising benefits for seniors who experience rapid muscle loss and muscle injury and loss as they age. Researchers at McMaster University have found that physical activity can help retain, even repair and regenerate damaged muscle in the elderly. The findings challenge what is generally seen as an inevitable fact of life: that muscle atrophy and damage cannot be completely repaired in old age and in some cases lost altogether.

• share
• favorite_border

As young people reach adulthood, their preferences for sweet foods typically decline. But a Washington University School of Medicine research team, led by M. Yanina Pepino, PhD, and Tamara Hershey, PhD, has found that for people with obesity, the drop-off may not be as steep, and the brain’s reward system may be operating differently.

• share
• favorite_border

Mechanism of genome replication arrest provides pioneering insight about cell life span and aging

• share
• favorite_border

Women live longer than men. This simple statement holds a tantalizing riddle that Steven Austad, Ph.D., and Kathleen Fischer, Ph.D., of the University of Alabama at Birmingham explore in a perspective piece published in Cell Metabolism on June 14.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at Mayo Clinic have developed an accurate way to measure a circulating factor, called GDF11, to better understand its potential impact on the aging process. They found that GDF11 levels do not decline with chronological age, but are associated with signs of advanced biological age, including chronic disease, frailty and greater operative risk in older adults with cardiovascular disease. Results appear today in Cell Metabolism.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at Mayo Clinic have identified the enzyme, called CD38, that is responsible for the decrease in nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) during aging, a process that is associated with age-related metabolic decline. Results demonstrated an increase in the presence of CD38 with aging in both mice and humans. The results appear today in Cell Metabolism.

• share
• favorite_border

Although brains—even adult brains—are far more malleable than we used to think, they are eventually subject to age-related illnesses, like dementia, and loss of cognitive function. Someday, though, we may actually be able to replace brain cells and restore memory.

• share
• favorite_border

Siobhan Malany, Ph.D., director of Translational Biology at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute at Lake Nona (SBP) and founder of the Institute’s first spin-off company, Micro-gRx, Inc., has been awarded $435,000 to study atrophy in muscle cells in microgravity on the International Space Station (ISS).

• share
• favorite_border

Young people are less likely to be ageist when their friends have friendships with older adults, research led by psychologists at the University of Kent has shown.

• share
• favorite_border

Dr. John Hatle, a professor in the Department of Biology at the University of North Florida, was awarded a grant for more than $430,000 by the National Institutes of Health to continue his research studying how a reduced diet can slow aging and extend lifespan in simple animals.

• share
• favorite_border

Wolters Kluwer, a leading global provider of information and point of care solutions for the healthcare industry, is pleased to announce a new publishing partnership with the open access journal, Healthy Aging Research.

• share
• favorite_border

Compared to older people, younger adults experience greater antioxidant benefits from one exercise session.

• share
• favorite_border

Research has found that hearing loss has wide-ranging impacts not only on older people's ability to communicate, but also on their ability to move about and participate in different hobbies and activities. This has been revealed in studies funded by the Academy of Finland whose results have been published in international scientific journals.

• share
• favorite_border

Developing and evaluating motion-capture technology to help older adults “age in place” has been the focus of researchers at the University of Missouri for more than a decade. Previous research has utilized video game technology and various web-cameras to detect health changes in Tiger Place residents. Now, two new studies demonstrate how monitoring walking speed using radar and heart health by utilizing bed sensors help maintain older adults’ health and warn of impeding issues.

• share
• favorite_border

Visual blurring—like that produced by bifocals or multifocal lenses—may cause errors in foot position when walking. And that could contribute to the risk of tripping and falling in older adults, suggests a study in the June issue of Optometry and Vision Science, official journal of the American Academy of Optometry. The journal is published by Wolters Kluwer.

• share
• favorite_border

Aging skin is less able to bounce back from wear and tear and wounds than younger skin. A new study identifies why.

• share
• favorite_border

A dietary supplement containing a blend of thirty vitamins and minerals—all natural ingredients widely available in health food stores—has shown remarkable anti-aging properties that can prevent and even reverse massive brain cell loss, according to new research from McMaster University. It’s a mixture scientists believe could someday slow the progress of catastrophic neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s, ALS and Parkinson’s.

• share
• favorite_border

Brian Balin, PhD, has studied the link between infection and Alzheimer's disease for more than 20 years and offers his thoughts on this growing area of research.

• share
• favorite_border

While the evidence behind this age-related weakening of the circadian rhythm has been established in medical literature, the mechanisms behind it, and the connectivity structure of the neurons, have remained elusive. To better understand these neuronal and hormonal mechanisms and help develop potential treatments, researchers have conducted experimental analyses of the SCN’s connections, with the goal of determining its degree of heterogeneity. They discuss their work in this week’s CHAOS.

• share
• favorite_border

Social and economic disadvantages play a significant role in why blacks face a much higher risk than whites of developing cognitive impairment later in life, indicates a national study led by a Michigan State University (MSU) sociologist.

• share
• favorite_border

Click to visit the Aging Channel

• share
• favorite_border

The creation of four patient-related oral health literacy fact sheets for distribution to internal medicine physicians and primary care providers by a partnership between the American College of Physicians and NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers found that individuals who maintain an active jogging habit into their senior years are spending nearly the same amount of metabolic energy as a 20-year-old.

• share
• favorite_border

Study shows that sea urchins defy aging, regardless of lifespan.

• share
• favorite_border

Report highlights critical role of relationships in aging, along with the struggles faced by older adults living in cities.

• share
• favorite_border

The visible impacts of depression and stress that can be seen in a person's face -- and contribute to shorter lives -- can also be found in alterations in genetic activity, according to newly published research from the Indiana University School of Medicine and the Scripps Research Institute.

• share
• favorite_border

In a paper published in the current Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System say existing screening tools for mild cognitive impairment (MCI) result in a false-negative error rate of more than 7 percent. These persons are misclassified as not having MCI based on standard screening instruments but actually do have MCI when more extensive testing is conducted.

• share
• favorite_border

UCLA neuroscientists have identified in mice how the brain links different memories over time. The findings suggest a possible intervention for people suffering from age-related memory problems.

• share
• favorite_border

Why We Get Tired When We Stay Up Too Late, Pain and Anxiety Drug Linked to Birth Defects, Old Drug Could Fight Brain Cancer and more in the Neuroscience and Neurology News Source

• share
• favorite_border

Intensive therapies to reduce high blood pressure can cut the risk of heart disease in older adults without increasing the risk for falls, according to doctors at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center.

• share
• favorite_border

A new study from Uppsala University shows that compared to non-shift workers, shift workers needed more time to complete a test that is frequently used by physicians to screen for cognitive impairment. However, those who had quit shift work more than five years ago completed the test just as quick as the non-shift workers. The findings are published in the journal Neurobiology of Aging.

• share
• favorite_border

click to view today's top stories

• share
• favorite_border

Being fit may reduce the decline in lung function that occurs as we grow older, according to research presented at the ATS 2016 International Conference.

• share
• favorite_border

Research from the University of Kentucky College of Health Sciences was able to demonstrate a positive correlation between fitness and blood flow to areas of the brain where the hallmark tangles and plaques of Alzheimer’s disease pathology are usually first detected, indicating a possibility that regular exercise could stave off AD symptoms.

• share
• favorite_border

Chronological age itself plays almost no role in accounting for differences in older people’s health and well-being, according to a new, large-scale study by a multidisciplinary team of researchers at the University of Chicago.

• share
• favorite_border

click to view today's top stories

• share
• favorite_border

Tricuspid regurgitation (TR) occurs when the heart’s tricuspid valve leaks, allowing blood to flow back from the right ventricle to the right atrium. TR can be secondary to disorders of left-sided heart valves (mitral or aortic). At the 96th AATS Annual Meeting, investigators present the results of a long-term study of patients who underwent mitral valve (MV) repair. They found that although newly developed TR after MV repair was rare, the risk could increase in older patients with atrial fibrillation and impaired heart function.

• share
• favorite_border

Nearly 30 years of data collected on painted turtles in the Mississippi River near Clinton, Iowa, show that females suffer a steep dip in fertility before the end of their lives, a finding that flies in the face of what scientists have believed about turtles and aging.

• share
• favorite_border

click to see today's top stories

• share
• favorite_border

Scientists make an important breakthrough in understanding the impact of oxygen exposure on the aging process of mammal cells.

• share
• favorite_border

click to see today's top stories

• share
• favorite_border

Diagnosing Mononucleosis, Need for Health Interventions for Single Parent Households in Urban Subsidized Housing Programs, Inadequate Financial Savings Tied to Increased Childhood Health Risks, and more in the Public Health News Source

• share
• favorite_border

Chronic use of some drugs for heartburn and gastroesophageal reflux (GERD) speeds up the aging of blood vessels, according to a published paper in Circulation Research (early online), an American Heart Association journal. This accelerated aging in humans could lead to increased cardiovascular disease, vascular dementia and renal failure.

• share
• favorite_border

In Alzheimer’s disease, plaques of amyloid beta protein accumulate in the brain, damaging connections between neurons. Now, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Harvard Medical School have found that the enzyme Protein Kinase C (PKC) alpha is necessary for amyloid beta to damage neuronal connections. They also identified genetic variations that enhance PKC alpha activity in patients with Alzheimer’s disease.

• share
• favorite_border

click to see today's top stories

• share
• favorite_border

With more than 13 percent of Americans currently over age 65, and that proportion expected to grow in the coming decades, psychology has played and will continue to play an important part in helping seniors maintain their health, adjust to retirement and prevent cognitive decline, according to the flagship journal of the American Psychological Association.

• share
• favorite_border

Newly discovered genetic switches that increase lifespan and boost fitness in worms are also linked to increased lifespan in mammals, offering hope that drugs to flip these switches could improve human metabolic function and increase longevity.

• share
• favorite_border

When It Comes to Spring Allergies, Oak Pollen More Potent Than Pine; Food Allergies of Low-Income Kids Are Poorly Managed; Flowers Not to Blame for Allergies, and More in the Allergies Channel