Aging & Longevity

N/A.

Calcium carbonate precipitation in ageing ocean crust sequesters carbon dioxide dissolved in seawater through seafloor weathering reactions, influencing atmospheric CO(2) concentrations on million-year timescales. However, this crustal carbon sink, and the extent it balances CO(2) degassing during crustal formation at mid-ocean ridges, remain poorly quantified due to limited sampling of the vast ridge flanks where CO(2) uptake continues for millions of years. Here we quantify the carbon sink...

CONCLUSIONS: A low level of muscle strength is significantly associated with an increased risk of comorbidities among middle-aged and older adults. Therefore, incorporating strength training into comorbidity prevention and control strategies is of great importance and should be considered a key intervention. Particular emphasis should be placed on lower limb strength exercises, which do not exhibit a plateau effect in reducing comorbidity risk and can thus yield more substantial health benefits.

Given the well-established structural and functional changes in the aging brain, it is widely assumed that cognitive aging is primarily driven by robust group-level differences between young and older adults. However, our individual-level EEG functional connectivity analysis challenges this notion. We investigated the impact of cognitive training on functional brain connectivity using task-switching paradigms in 39 younger (18-25 years) and 40 older (60-75 years) women. Participants were...

This study aimed to evaluate the independent and joint effects of adherence to healthy dietary patterns and slower biological aging on the incidence of diabetic microvascular complications in individuals with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), and to assess the mediating role of biological aging. In a prospective cohort of 13,294 T2DM participants without baseline DMCs, dietary quality was assessed using a validated 10-point score, while biological aging was calculated from nine biomarkers and...

Biological ageing is a systemic, multifactorial process driven by progressive molecular and cellular alterations whose complexity necessitates systems-level approaches. Advances in high-throughput omics technologies now allow simultaneous quantification of millions of biomolecules from a single specimen, enabling longitudinal, integrative profiling across multiple molecular layers. This review synthesizes recent progress in applying genomics, epigenomics, metabolomics and microbiomics to ageing...

Organ shortage remains a major barrier in treating end-stage organ failure, with many patients dying while waiting or becoming medically unfit by the time an organ is offered. A substantial number of organs, particularly from older donors, remain unused due to concerns over age-related decline in quality. This review highlights emerging strategies to rejuvenate and optimize such organs by mitigating ischemia-reperfusion injury and reducing age-related immunogenicity. Advances in organ...

The human utricle is a vestibular organ essential for balance, a function that declines with age. With the aging population projected to double to 2 billion by 2050 and no pharmaceutical or biological treatments available, balance disorders represent a significant unmet medical need. The utricle is composed of sensory and non-sensory cells, which are closely related. Non-sensory cells have limited capacity to regenerate sensory cells and, therefore, are a relevant therapeutic target. In this...

Aging is accompanied by profound alterations in the immune system; yet, an accurate prediction of immunological age remains challenging. While transcriptomic approaches have yielded insights into immune aging, protein-level profiling and machine learning-based prediction tools remain underdeveloped. Here, we employ mass cytometry to analyse murine splenic CD45⁺ immune cells across various age groups, profiling the expression of 30 protein markers and monitoring age-related immune changes. By...

Iron-sulfur (Fe-S) clusters are essential metallocofactors that perform a multitude of biological functions^(1-7). Their synthesis is tightly regulated and defects in this process lead to severe diseases^(8-10), such as Friedreich's ataxia, which is caused by defective expression of frataxin (FXN)^(11). However, the underlying mechanisms that regulate this process remain unclear. Here we show that efficient Fe-S cluster assembly requires a fine-tuned balance in the ratio of FXN and ferredoxin-2...

Reproduction is hypothesized to constrain lifespan^(1,2) and contribute to sex differences in ageing^(3-5). Various sterilization and contraception methods inhibit reproduction, but predictions differ for how these influence survival, depending on sex⁵, how sex hormones are affected⁴ and species life history⁶. Here, using data from mammalian species housed in zoos and aquariums worldwide, we show that ongoing hormonal contraception and permanent surgical sterilization are associated with...

No abstract

The progressive aging of the Italian population and the increasing prevalence of multimorbidity and frailty call for a reorganization of health and social care services. In this paper we aim to critically examine Ministerial Decree 77/2022, within Mission 6 of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, which establishes new models and standards for community-based care and offers an unique opportunity to deliver care that is closer to people's homes, fostering a holistic approach that combines...

Caloric restriction (CR) extends the health and lifespan of diverse species. When fed once daily, CR-treated mice rapidly consume their food and endure a prolonged fast between meals. As fasting is associated with a rise in circulating ketone bodies, we investigated the role of ketogenesis in CR using mice with whole-body ablation of Hmgcs2, the rate-limiting enzyme producing the main ketone body β-hydroxybutyrate (βHB). Here, we report that Hmgcs2 is largely dispensable for many metabolic...

CONCLUSION: In this prospective cohort study, osteosarcopenia increased the risk of frailty. Our interaction analysis suggests therapies targeting bone density and grip strength may mitigate frailty.

The rapid advancement of spatially resolved transcriptomics (SRT) technology enables gene expression profiling across tissue locations while preserving spatial context. Gene co-expression analysis in SRT data provides critical insights into how genes function together within the tissue microenvironment. However, existing methods fail to effectively capture the joint influence of gene-gene interactions and spatial dependencies, limiting their biological interpretability. Here, we introduce spMOCA...

Aging in females is characterized by dysfunctional ovaries (DOs). While human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cell (HucMSC)-derived extracellular vesicles (EVs) have shown promise in ameliorating DO, the mechanisms underlying their effects remain poorly understood. In this study, we investigated the therapeutic potential of growth differentiation factor 9 (GDF-9)-overexpressing EVs (GOEs) on granulosa cells. We identified the activin A receptor type 1B (ACVR1B) as a critical target for the...

Atherosclerosis, a key pathological basis of cardio-cerebrovascular diseases, is closely associated with aging and endothelial cell senescence. The role of microRNAs (miRNAs) in regulating endothelial cell senescence and atherosclerosis remains incompletely understood. In this study, we discovered that miR-375-3p expression was significantly elevated in the serum of both aged and atherosclerotic mice. Overexpression of miR-375-3p induced endothelial cell senescence, evidenced by increased...

INTRODUCTION: The aging global population underscores the need to understand brain aging and its links to neurodegenerative diseases. While most brain aging studies use cognitive impairment as exclusion criteria, preclinical biomarkers may influence results, potentially masking early pathological effects. This study evaluates how preclinical AD and vascular biomarkers impact brain aging models in cognitively normal subjects.

White matter hyperintensities (WMH) are an MRI-based biomarker associated with aging, Alzheimer's disease, and vascular dementia. Although the volume of WMH typically increases over time (growth) for individuals, WMH volume in some cases can also decrease (regress). This suggests the presence of active brain injury recovery mechanisms. Whether WMH regression reflects a true biological phenomenon or results from imaging artifacts or measurement errors, however, remains controversial. Here, we...