Aging & Longevity

Exposure to infectious disease in early life may have long-term ramifications for health and lifespan. However, reducing pathogen exposure may not be uniformly beneficial. The rise of modern sanitation and reduction of infectious diseases has been implicated in increasing levels of allergy and immune dysregulation: termed, the "hygiene hypothesis." This study leverages quasi-experimental variation from combining precampaign hookworm exposure with the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission's deworming...

How societies remember the dead can reveal what people value in life. We analyzed 38 million obituaries from the United States to examine how personal values are encoded in individual and collective legacies. Using Schwartz's theory of basic human values, we found that tradition and benevolence dominated legacy reflections, while values like power and stimulation appeared less frequently. Major cultural events-the terrorist attacks of September 11th, the 2008 financial crisis, and the COVID-19...

Ageing of the haematopoietic system is characterized by phenotypic and functional impairments that are driven by alterations of haematopoietic stem cells and of the bone marrow niche. Haematopoietic stem cells are responsible for the production of all the different cell types that constitute the blood, and their maintenance and differentiation must be tightly regulated during the whole life of an organism. Exciting new data emphasize that central aspects of blood ageing, ranging from...

Cognitive Frailty (CF) is a clinical syndrome characterized by the co-occurrence of physical frailty and cognitive impairment in the absence of dementia. This geriatric condition has emerged as a significant contributor to compromised health status and diminished quality of life among aging populations, yet its underlying pathological mechanisms remain incompletely elucidated. Chronic low-grade inflammation, recognized as a hallmark of biological aging, has been implicated in the pathogenesis of...

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: This study revealed the beneficial effects of music imaging on cognitive function, neuropsychiatric symptoms, sleep quality, and quality of life among older adults with MCI. These findings support the application of music imaging among older adults with MCI with the aim of slowing cognitive decline, improving symptoms, and promoting healthy aging. (The study was registered with the China Clinical Trial Registry [ChiCTR2400081469] and approved by the Ethics Committee...

CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS: An NLP-based model using EMS text data could improve the identification of frequent users. Integration of such tools into prehospital care systems may support earlier identification and tailored intervention strategies for older people frequent in use of acute care.

Neuroblastomas encompass malignant cells with varying degrees of differentiation, ranging from adrenergic (adr) cells resembling the sympathoadrenal lineage to undifferentiated, stem-cell-like mesenchymal (mes) cancer cells. Relapsed neuroblastomas, which often have mesenchymal features, have a poor prognosis and respond less to anticancer therapies, necessitating the development of novel treatment strategies. To identify novel treatment options, we analyzed the sensitivity of 91 pediatric cell...

Mitochondrial dynamics enable cellular adaptation to fluctuations in energy demand, such as those imposed on skeletal muscle by exercise, metabolic disorders, or aging. Here, we report a novel pathway that modulates mitochondria dynamics in skeletal muscle involving the scaffolding protein ankyrin-B. Rare variants in ankyrin-B, encoded by ANK2, increase risk for cardio-metabolic syndrome in humans and mice. We show that mice selectively lacking skeletal muscle ankyrin-B have reduced endurance...

The increasing global prevalence of diabetic nephropathy poses substantial health and economic burdens. Currently, effective anti-fibrotic therapies for managing kidney fibrosis associated with chronic kidney disease are lacking. This study reveals corisin, a microbiota-derived peptide, as a central driver in the progression of diabetic kidney fibrosis. Corisin levels were found to be markedly elevated in the serum of diabetic chronic kidney disease patients relative to healthy controls, with...

Recent advancements in cancer immunotherapy have improved patient outcomes, yet responses to immunotherapy remain moderate. Immunosenescence has been shown to contribute to the development and progression of various diseases; however, its specific role in solid tumors has not been fully delineated. Here we conducted a phase 2 clinical trial involving 51 patients with cancer undergoing neoadjuvant chemoimmunotherapy and applied single-cell RNA as well as TCR and BCR sequencing on tumor and blood...

BACKGROUND: Chronic pain (CP) and psychiatric disorders (PD) are common in older adults, and they both may significantly impact patients' functioning and quality of life. However, research on the prevalence and impact of CP in people with PD remains limited- especially in older adults- and psychiatric care often neglects somatic comorbidities.

Each year, billions of animals migrate across the globe on diverse spatial and temporal scales. Migration behavior thus plays a fundamental role in the life cycle and Darwinian fitness of many organisms. While the influence of migration on early-life survival and reproduction is well documented, its effects on senescence (aging) in advanced age remain largely unexplored. Using a unique 44-y ring-resighting dataset from a long-lived, partially migratory bird species, the Greater Flamingo...

The fast-paced improvements in mortality in high-income countries since the early 1900s have led to a sustained increase in life expectancy. However, whether this linear trend will continue or life expectancy gains will decelerate in the near future remains unclear. To answer this question, we apply multiple established and recently developed mortality forecasting methods to estimate cohort life expectancy for individuals born between 1939 and 2000 in 23 high-income countries. Across all...

NAD + homeostasis is an important determinant of lifespan and may be a key mechanism of caloric restriction (CR) expansion of lifespan. Ketone bodies such as beta-hydroxybutyrate (BHB) that regulate NAD + abundance and NAD + precursors such nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN), are known to extend life in experimental animals and ameliorate age-related conditions in humans. We tested the hypothesis that chronic BHB and NMN exposure can extend lifespan similarly to the effect of CR treatment in a...

CONCLUSION: Compared to patients with other serious illnesses, a relatively large portion of patients with advanced cancer reported that their treatment discordantly focused on longevity over comfort despite their goal to prioritize comfort over longevity.

Aging and neurodegenerative diseases are characterized by cognitive decline, impaired neuroplasticity, and epigenetic dysregulation. Curcumin, a bioactive polyphenol derived from Curcuma longa, has gained significant attention for its neuroprotective properties, particularly in enhancing cognitive function through epigenetic mechanisms. This review explores the multifaceted role of curcumin in modulating key molecular pathways involved in neuroplasticity, including histone modifications, DNA...

The hippocampus has been widely implicated in the neurobiology of neurologic and psychiatric disorders. This structure is heterogeneous, however, and comprised of multiple subregions that have different connectivity patterns and functions. Better understanding how these subregions are affected by age and their relationship with neurocognition could provide information regarding how alterations in normal trajectories play a role in disease and cognitive dysfunction. Using natural splines we...

Emerging digitally delivered non-pharmacological interventions (dNPIs) offer scalable, low-risk solutions for enhancing cognitive function in older adults, yet their effectiveness remains inconsistent due to a lack of personalization and precise mechanisms of action. Generic, population-based designs often fail to predict individual gains, underscoring the need for more tailored approaches. To address this, we propose a closed-loop human-machine interface (HMI) framework for personalizing dNPIs...

Cellular senescence restrains the expansion of neoplastic cells through several layers of regulation. We report that the histone H3-specific demethylase KDM4 is expressed as human stromal cells undergo senescence. In clinical oncology, upregulated KDM4 and diminished H3K9/H3K36 methylation correlate with poorer survival of patients with prostate cancer after chemotherapy. Global chromatin accessibility mapping via assay for transposase-accessible chromatin with high-throughput sequencing, and...

Aging is a multifactorial biological process resulting in physiological and cellular decline. However, our understanding of age-related changes in 3D genome organization and the effect of external interventions on this process remains limited. Here, we describe alterations in the landscape of the 3D chromatin interactome upon aging, utilizing the low-input promoter capture Hi-C (liCHi-C) technique with mouse hippocampal neurons. We also integrated liCHi-C data with RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) data...