Aging & Longevity

Preserving hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) functionality is essential for maintaining healthy blood and the immune system throughout life. HSC function declines with age; however, the underlying mechanisms are not fully understood. Using an inducible mosaic mouse model to overexpress the transcription factor Bcl11a in the hematopoietic compartment, we found that an aging-related increase in Bcl11a mitigated HSC functional decline, promoted IL-1β production in the bone marrow (BM), and accelerated...

BACKGROUND: As individuals experience age-related changes, such as cognitive decline or hospitalizations, their ability to live independently at home may be impacted. Decision-making and planning are essential in order to support successful aging-in-place (AIP), which is defined as continuing to live in one's home and community. Despite making plans at one single time-point, prior research has demonstrated that decision-making among older adults is not stagnant.

Vascular contributions to cognitive impairment and dementia (VCID) represent a major public health challenge in the aging population, with age-related cerebromicrovascular dysfunction playing a critical role in its development. Understanding the mechanisms underlying cerebromicrovascular aging is crucial for devising strategies to mitigate this burden. Among the key hallmarks of aging, genomic instability and genetic heterogeneity have emerged as significant drivers of age-related diseases....

Sleep disorders, particularly insomnia and obstructive sleep apnea, are increasingly implicated as significant contributors to cognitive decline, dementia, and neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease (AD) and vascular cognitive impairment and dementia (VCID). However, the extent and specificity of these associations remain uncertain. This meta-analysis evaluates the impact of common sleep disorders on the risk of developing dementia and cognitive decline. A comprehensive search of...

CONCLUSIONS: Loneliness and social isolation among community-dwelling older adults are complex issues with profound implications for physical, mental, and social well-being. Addressing these challenges requires integrative approaches that consider individual, relational, and contextual factors. Further longitudinal and standardized research is needed to improve our understanding of the long-term impacts and effectiveness of interventions to mitigate these issues.

CONCLUSIONS: This study utilized a relatively large and highly representative sample of community-dwelling residents to identify factors associated with fractures in independent older adults. Even in independent older adults who were not certified as requiring long-term care, fractures were significantly associated with a decline in multiple health domains. These findings provide valuable insights that can inform efforts to promote healthy aging and reduce care dependency.

Social factors influence health outcomes and life expectancy. Individuals living in poverty often have adverse health outcomes related to chronic inflammation that affect the cardiovascular, renal, and pulmonary systems. Negative psychosocial experiences are associated with transcriptional changes in genes associated with complex traits. However, the underlying molecular mechanisms by which poverty increases the risk of disease and health disparities are still not fully understood. To bridge the...

Identifying factors affecting lifespan, including genes or proteins, enables effective interventions. We prioritized potential drug targets and provided insights into biological pathways for healthy longevity by integrating Mendelian randomization, cohort, and experimental studies. We identified causal effects of tissue-specific genetic transcripts and serum protein levels on three longevity outcomes: the parental lifespan, the top 1% and 10% extreme longevity, utilizing Mendelian randomization...

CONCLUSION: Social participation not only directly improves cognitive function but also indirectly enhances it by reducing depression and increasing grandchild caregiving engagement among middle-aged and elderly individuals. However, while the mediating effect of grandchild care is statistically significant, its effect size remains relatively small, suggesting that its overall contribution to cognitive function should be interpreted with caution. In contrast, depression demonstrates a more...

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Age-related cognitive decline associations with human electroencephalography (EEG) have previously focused on periodic activity. However, EEG primarily consists of non-oscillatory aperiodic activity, characterised with an exponent and offset value. In a secondary analysis of a cohort of 111 healthy participants aged 17 - 71 years, we examined the associations of the aperiodic exponent and offset in resting EEG with a battery of cognitive tests consisting of the Colour-Word Interference Test,...

With the unprecedented pace of global population aging, there has been a parallel epidemiological shift marked by increasing incidence rates of ulcerative colitis (UC) in geriatric populations, imposing a substantial disease burden on healthcare systems globally. The etiopathogenesis of UC in the elderly remains poorly delineated, while current therapeutic strategies require further optimization to accommodate the unique pathophysiological characteristics of elderly patients. This review...

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Increasing evidence suggests that red and processed meat consumption may elevate the risk of colorectal cancer (CRC), yet the magnitude and consistency of this association remain debated. This meta-analysis aims to quantify the relationship between red and processed meat intake and the risk of CRC, colon cancer, and rectal cancer using the most comprehensive set of prospective studies to date. We conducted a comprehensive search in PubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, Embase, and Google...

Aging and COVID- 19 are known to influence DNA methylation, potentially affecting the rate of aging and the risk of disease. The physiological functions of 54 volunteers-including maximal oxygen uptake (VO₂ max), grip strength, and vertical jump-were assessed just before the COVID- 19 pandemic and again 3 years later. Of these volunteers, 27 had contracted COVID- 19. Eight epigenetic clocks were used to assess the rate of aging during the 3-year period: DNAmAge showed accelerated aging, and five...

The clinical and pathological outcomes differ between early-onset (diagnosed in men ≤55 years of age) and late-onset prostate cancer, potentially attributed to the changes in hormone levels and immune activities associated with aging. Exploring the heterogeneity therein holds potential for developing age-specific precision interventions. Here, through single-cell and spatial transcriptomic analyses of prostate cancer tissues, we identified that an androgen response-related transcriptional...

Three-dimensional (3D) genome organization becomes altered during development, aging and disease, but the factors regulating chromatin topology are incompletely understood and currently no technology can efficiently screen for new regulators of multi-scale chromatin organization. Here, we developed an image-based high-content screening platform (Perturb-tracing) that combines pooled CRISPR screens, a cellular barcode readout method (BARC-FISH) and chromatin tracing. We performed a...

The Atg8-family proteins, including LC3B (microtubule-associated protein 1 light chain 3 beta), are pivotal for key steps in the autophagy process. Proper regulation of LC3B homeostasis is essential for its function. Although LC3B is modulated by various posttranslational modifications (PTMs), the impact of these modifications on LC3B protein homeostasis remains unclear. Neddylation, a recently identified ubiquitin-like modification, plays diverse biological roles. Here, we identify LC3B as a...

Genetic effects on complex traits may depend on context, such as age, sex, environmental exposures, or social settings. However, it remains often unclear if the extent of context dependency, or gene-by-environment interaction (GxE), merits more involved models than the additive model typically used to analyze data from genome-wide association studies (GWAS). Here, we suggest considering the utility of GxE models in GWAS as a trade-off between bias and variance parameters. In particular, we...