Aging & Longevity

Life-history theory, central to our understanding of diversity in morphology, behaviour, and senescence, describes how traits evolve through the optimisation of trade-offs in investment. Despite considerable study, there is only minimal support for trade-offs within species between the two traits most closely linked to fitness - reproductive effort and survival - questioning the theory's general validity. We used a meta-analysis to separate the effects of individual quality (positive...

This study examines the long-term association between income and life expectancy in Sweden between 1960 and 2021. The study is based on register data that include all Swedish permanent residents aged 40 y and older. The results show that the gap in life expectancy between the top and bottom income percentiles widened substantially: For men, it increased from 3.5 y in the 1960s to 10.9 y by the 2010s, and for women, from 3.8 y in the 1970s to 8.6 y by the 2010s. Despite a reduction in income...

Splenic T cells are pivotal to the immune system, yet their function deteriorates with age. To elucidate the specific aspects of T cell biology affected by aging, we conducted a comprehensive multi-time point single-cell RNA sequencing study, complemented by single-cell Assay for Transposase Accessible Chromatin (ATAC) sequencing and single-cell T cell repertoire (TCR) sequencing on splenic T cells from mice across 10 different age groups. This map of age-related changes in the distribution of T...

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: This scoping review revealed that eFIs can be developed using various electronic health care data sources, and they have been extensively employed for various population-level purposes. The observed associations between the eFIs, existing frailty assessment tools, and health outcomes highlight their utility in evaluating the care needs of an aging population.

Rates of cognitive decline in Alzheimer's disease (AD) are extremely heterogeneous. Although biomarkers for amyloid-beta (Aβ) and tau proteins, the hallmark AD pathologies, have improved pathology-based diagnosis, they explain only 20-40% of the variance in AD-related cognitive impairment (CI). To discover novel biomarkers of CI in AD, we performed cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) proteomics on 3,397 individuals from six major prospective AD case-control cohorts. Synapse proteins emerged as the...

No abstract

Oligodendrocyte progenitor cells (OPCs) are highly dynamic, widely distributed glial cells of the central nervous system responsible for generating myelinating oligodendrocytes throughout life. However, the rates of OPC proliferation and differentiation decline dramatically with aging, which may impair homeostasis, remyelination and adaptive myelination during learning. To determine how aging influences OPCs, we generated a transgenic mouse line (Matn4-mEGFP) and performed single-cell RNA...

Cardiac aging is an intrinsic process that leads to impaired heart function, along with cellular and molecular changes. Recent research highlights the important role of mitochondria in cardiac function, due to the heart's high energy demands. Serum response factor (SRF), a transcription factor involved in regulating actin and smooth muscle gene expression, is well known as a regulator of various aspects of cardiac function. However, its role in mitochondrial regulation and cardiac aging is...

Cellular senescence is a stress-inducible state switch relevant in aging, tumorigenesis and cancer therapy. Beyond a lasting arrest, senescent cells are characterized by profound chromatin remodeling and transcriptional reprogramming. We show here myeloid-skewed aberrant lineage plasticity and its immunological ramifications in therapy-induced senescence (TIS) of primary human and murine B-cell lymphoma. We find myeloid transcription factor (TF) networks, specifically AP-1-, C/EBPβ- and...

Although ovarian reserve remains sufficient, ovarian function declines in mid-age, leading to reduced fertility around age 35, with the causes remaining unclear. Recent studies highlight vascular aging as a key factor in this decline, with age-related reductions in ovarian vascular remodeling disrupting oocyte development. Salidroside, a natural compound that reverses ovarian vascular aging and promotes ovarian angiogenesis, presents a promising strategy to rejuvenate ovarian health and enhance...

Neuroimaging of blood-brain barrier permeability has been instrumental in identifying its broad involvement in neurological and systemic diseases. However, current methods evaluate the blood-brain barrier mainly as a structural barrier. Here we developed a non-invasive positron emission tomography method in humans to measure the blood-brain barrier permeability of molecular radiotracers that cross the blood-brain barrier through its molecule-specific transport mechanism. Our method uses...

Skeletal muscle weakness is a major component of age-associated frailty, but the underlying mechanisms are not completely understood. Drosophila has emerged as a useful model for studying skeletal muscle aging. In this organism, previous lab-based selection established strains with increased longevity and reduced age-associated muscle functional decline compared to a parental strain. Here, we have applied a computational pipeline (JUMPptm) for retrieving information on 8 post-translational...

Aging is a complex process that affects human health and lifespan. While chronological age (CA) is a significant risk factor for many diseases, it does not fully capture biological changes that influence health span. This study explores cognitive measures using the Seoul Neuropsychological Screening Battery and body composition profiles as potential biological age (BA) markers in the older population. Multiple linear regression, principal component analysis (PCA), and the Klemera-Doubal (KDM)...

Skin aging is influenced by both intrinsic and extrinsic factors. The gradual manifestation of changes in telomere length and telomerase activity, as crucial indicators of aging, elucidates the underlying mechanism of skin aging. This review aims to comprehensively analyze the association between telomeres and aging, along with their impact on skin biological function. Firstly, we summarize the structure and function of telomeres and their role in cell division. Subsequently, we discuss the...

Nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) are important regulators of brain and immune function that play critical roles in the neuropathology and progression of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD). However, quantifying nAChRs in the brain remains elusive, and little is known about peripheral measures of nAChR in older adults or their relationship to cognition. Here, we examined associations between nAChR expression and immunoregulatory function in peripheral blood monocytes and...

As men get older, they often develop benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), an enlarged prostate that is not cancerous or dangerous. Although the etiology of BPH is unknown, increasing evidence indicates that the TGF-β signaling pathway might be a key player in its pathogenesis. TGF-β is a pleiotropic cytokine involved in proliferation, differentiation, and extracellular matrix re-modeling, which are all dysregulated in BPH. Cellular senescence is primarily initiated by TGF-β--induced, irreversible...

In particular, oxidative stress, generated by excessive reactive oxygen species (ROS), plays a major role in the neurodegenerative component of Parkinson's disease (PD) in aged neurons. DJ-1 (PARK7) is a key factor for maintaining redox homeostasis and modulation of mitochondrial function to preserve the cellular survival pathways. DJ-1 also plays a role in redox signaling independently of its antioxidant capacity by preventing the redox chain disulfide formation and stabilizing the master...

Mitochondria play a crucial role in brain homeostasis and changes in mitochondrial bioenergetics are linked to age-related neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. We investigated changes in the activities of the electron transport chain (ETC) complexes in normally aging baboon brains and determined how these changes relate to donor sex, morning cortisol levels, and walking speed. We assessed mitochondrial bioenergetics from archived prefrontal cortex...

Aging affects reproductive capabilities in males through physiological and behavioral alterations, including endocrine changes and decreased libido. In this study, we investigated the influence of intermittent fasting (IF) on these aging-related declines, using male C57BL/6J mice. Our findings revealed that IF significantly preserved reproductive success in aged mice, not by improving traditional reproductive metrics such as sperm quality or endocrine functions but by enhancing mating behavior....

Ageing is a scientifically fascinating and complex biological occurrence characterised by morphological and functional changes due to accumulated molecular and cellular damage impairing tissue and organ function. Ageing is often accompanied by cognitive decline but is also the biggest known risk factor for Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia. Emerging evidence suggests that sedentary and unhealthy lifestyles accelerate brain ageing, while regular physical activity, high...