Aging & Longevity

The fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster emerges as an affordable, genetically tractable model of behavior and brain diseases. However, despite the surprising level of evolutionary conservation from flies to humans, significant genetic, circuit-level, and behavioral differences hinder the interpretability of fruit fly models for human disease. Therefore, to allow a more direct fly-versus-human comparison, we surveyed the rarely exploited, rich behavioral repertoire of fruit flies with genetic...

Blood perfusion delivers oxygen and nutrients to all cells, making it a fundamental feature of brain organization. How cerebral blood perfusion maps onto micro-, meso- and macro-scale brain structure and function is therefore a key question in neuroscience. Here we analyze pseudo-continuous arterial spin labeling (ASL) data from 1305 healthy individuals in the HCP Lifespan studies (5-22 and 36-100 years) to reconstruct a high-resolution normative cerebral blood perfusion map. At the cellular and...

CONCLUSION: Older adults who are homebound face multifaceted challenges that require integrated, multidisciplinary, home-based care approaches. Expanding home-based primary and palliative care, addressing unmet care needs, and providing caregiver support are critical priorities among countries with aging populations. Future research should focus on home-based healthcare delivery models and targeted interventions to address gaps in mental health services, cognitive assessment and management, and...

Strategies to slow the aging process or mitigate its consequences on health rely on the validation of minimally-invasive biomarkers of aging that can be used to track aging and test the effectiveness of antiaging interventions. Study of aging in a nonhuman primate species offers a robust translational approach to achieving these aims, avoiding wide differences in genetics and environmental exposures that confound human aging studies. As epigenetic age appears to predict biological aging,...

Dietary protein is a key regulator of healthy aging in both mice and humans. In mice, reducing dietary levels of the branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) recapitulates many of the benefits of a low protein diet; BCAA-restricted diets extend lifespan, reduce frailty, and improve metabolic health, while BCAA supplementation shortens lifespan, promotes obesity, and impairs glycemic control. Recently, high protein diets have been shown to promote cellular senescence, a hallmark of aging implicated in...

Elite sports have become increasingly professionalized and personalized, with soccer players facing a high number of games per season. This trend presents significant challenges in optimizing training for peak performance and requires rigorous monitoring of athletes to prevent overload and reduce injury risks. The emerging field of epigenetic clocks offers promising new pathways for developing useful biomarkers that enhance training management. This study investigates the effects of intense...

CONCLUSION: The high prevalence underscores the need for routine screening in health centers and caregiver education programs.

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Specialized ribosomes help determine which proteins are synthesized, however, the influence of age on ribosome heterogeneity and whether dysregulation of this process drives organismal aging is unknown. Here we examined the role of ribosomal RNA (rRNA) methylation in maintaining appropriate translation as organisms age. In a directed RNAi screen, we identified 18S rRNA N6'-dimethyl adenosine (m^(6,2)A) methyltransferase, dimt-1, as a regulator of C. elegans lifespan and stress resistance. We...

Why education is linked to higher cognitive function in aging is fiercely debated. Leading theories propose that education reduces brain decline in aging and enhances tolerance to brain pathology or that it does not affect cognitive decline but, rather, reflects higher early-life cognitive function. To test these theories, we analyzed 407,356 episodic memory scores from 170,795 participants older than 50 years, alongside 15,157 brain magnetic resonance imaging scans from 6,472 participants...

Reduced peak oxygen uptake (V̇O₂peak) is a hallmark of heart failure (HF) and aging, but studies on V̇O₂peak in older HF patients are limited. We compared V̇O₂peak in older HF patients versus controls and investigated differences across the age continuum: young-old (YO, 60-69 years), middle-old (MO, 70-79 years), and oldest-old (OO, ≥ 80 years). PubMed was searched (1967 May 2024) for studies meeting the following inclusion criteria: (1) HF patients with mean age ≥ 65 years; (2) V̇O₂peak...

This study aimed to investigate the dual-pathway mechanisms underlying cognitive-emotional integration in older adults through a 12-week randomized controlled trial. Specifically, it explored how groove music-integrated Tai Chi (GOTC) modulates cognitive and emotional processes compared to conventional music-based Tai Chi (COTC) and a control group (CON), using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and surface electromyography (sEMG) to assess prefrontal connectivity and neuromuscular...

DNA methylation data has been used to make "epigenetic clocks" which attempt to measure chronological and biological aging. These models rely on data derived from bisulfite-based measurements, which exploit a semi-selective deamination and a genomic reference to determine methylation states. We found that non-methylation factors lead to "pseudomethylation" signals that are both confounding of epigenetic clocks and uniquely age predictive. We also failed to predict age using human genotyping...

CONCLUSIONS: The need-based educational intervention, along with the educational handbook, has a positive impact on the QoL of older adults. We recommend formal educational sessions with country-specific guidelines for caregivers of activity-limited older adults in the community to improve their QoL.

CONCLUSION: Laparoscopic primary suture of the common bile duct avoids some complications associated with T-tube drainage and offers advantages such as less trauma, faster recovery, and shorter hospital stay. For elderly patients with clear indications, this surgical method is a safe and feasible option.

CONCLUSION: Multidimensional health promotion behaviors are critical factors in the frailty status of Chinese middle-aged and older adults, and there are gender differences in the age-dependent trends in the levels of health promotion behaviors among them with different frailty states. This informs the provision of targeted prevention and intervention services for middle-aged and older adults.

Background: Cognitive decline poses a significant challenge to healthy aging. While exercise is widely recognized for its cognitive benefits, the comparative efficacy of different exercise modalities and optimal intervention protocols for specific cognitive domains in older adults remains unclear. Objective: This network meta-analysis aimed to systematically compare the effects of five exercise modalities-resistance training, aerobic exercise, mind-body exercise, multicomponent exercise, and...

CONCLUSIONS: Among community-dwellers in six LMICs, DAO was significantly associated with MCI among middle-aged individuals, but not among older people. However, it is important to note that the study was cross-sectional in nature, and thus, it is not known whether DAO leads to MCI or vice versa. Therefore, future longitudinal studies are necessary to clarify temporal associations and possible causality.

Ultra-processed foods (UPF) are increasingly linked to negative health outcomes, including chronic diseases and mortality. Recent evidence suggests that UPF may accelerate biological ageing, potentially explaining their harmful effects. Therefore, this study was aimed to investigate associations between UPF intake categories and mortality risk, examining biological ageing's mediating and modifying effects. We used a prospective cohort design including 172,225 participants in the UK Biobank who...

Vascularized composite allotransplantation (VCA) has emerged as a novel therapy approach to restore form and function in patients with severe tissue defects of the face, hand, and abdominal wall, among other anatomical regions. The composite allografts comprise different tissues such as skin, muscle, or bone. Clinical data demonstrate promising mid- and long-term outcomes following VCA surgery, but our understanding of the cellular interactions and molecular pathways in VCA surgery is oftentimes...