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Scientists have discovered a hidden warning sign of skin damage that appears before collagen fibers visibly thin, break, or lose their connections. Using advanced light-based techniques, the team found that collagen’s carefully organized molecular “handedness” can collapse even while the tissue still appears structurally intact and contains the same amount of collagen. This suggests that skin may begin deteriorating at a much deeper level long before conventional imaging can detect a problem.

Three headbutting goats showed signs of neurodegeneration similar to those in humans following head injuries

Researchers have uncovered a surprising culprit behind sleep loss in Alzheimer’s disease: the brain’s own immune cells. In mice with amyloid plaques, overactive microglia triggered inflammation that kept the brain from getting enough deep, restorative sleep. Temporarily removing most of these cells restored more than two hours of sleep per day, even though the plaques remained unchanged.

Parkinsonism is a common clinical manifestation of Parkinson's disease (PD) and other atypical parkinsonism (AP). Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) may help characterize pathological alterations in cerebral white matter (WM). This study aimed to analyze the differences in early white matter microstructural alterations between PD and AP using DTI and to explore the potential value of DTI in the early differential diagnosis of PD and AP. DTI data were acquired from 12 patients with early PD, 11 with...

Blood-based biomarkers are emerging as scalable tools for the diagnosis and monitoring of neurodegenerative diseases, but markers enabling differential diagnosis across major dementias remain limited. Here we show that large-scale plasma proteomics identifies disease-associated signatures across Alzheimer's disease, dementia with Lewy bodies and frontotemporal dementia. We analyzed 1,318 plasma samples from well-characterized international cohorts and identified more than 200 dysregulated...

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: The global burden of HHD-related HF continues to rise, primarily fueled by population aging, though regional trends, and underlying drivers vary substantially. To address this challenge effectively, tailored prevention strategies should be implemented alongside global collaboration and equitable health care resource allocation, ensuring region-specific precision in HHD-related HF control.

Healthy aging is defined as remarkable longevity (beyond 90 years of age) accompanied by preserved functional status and absence of major clinical conditions. Although the incidence of cardiac arrhythmias, including atrial fibrillation (AF), increases with age, epidemiological studies revealed a paradoxical reduction of AF prevalence in centenarians compared to octogenarians and nonagenarians. Emerging evidence indicates that the apparent cardioprotection in healthy aging may be related to...

In a previous study, chloroquine (CLQ) administration extended lifespan in middle-aged male NMRI mice without systemic toxicity, challenging the view that blockage of autophagy is uniformly detrimental. Here, we evaluated a modified step-down intermittent CLQ regimen in aged female Sprague-Dawley rats designed to minimize long-term toxicity while maintaining biological activity. CLQ treatment significantly extended median lifespan and increased maximum lifespan by 19%. Treated rats exhibited a...

Aging is associated with increased oxidative stress, which leads to pathological vulnerability. Spermidine is a ubiquitous natural polyamine found across all living organisms studied so far and present in multiple food sources. In humans, spermidine levels decline with aging, and a possible connection between reduced endogenous spermidine concentration and age-related organ degeneration has been proposed. We outline recent studies that address the potential contribution of spermidine to...

Microglia, the resident macrophages of the CNS parenchyma, are recognized as highly plastic, transcriptionally diverse cells whose phenotypes are moulded by development, region, sex, age, genotype and environment. Advances in single-cell and single-nucleus transcriptomics, chromatin accessibility profiling, and spatial multi-omics have negated binary frameworks of 'resting versus activated' or 'M1 (pro-inflammatory) versus M2 (anti-inflammatory)' and revealed a multidimensional state space that...

Cytoskeleton is an important component of cell structure and function. In the cardiovascular system, it is involved in the remodeling process of a variety of cardiovascular diseases, including cardiac fibrosis, valvular disease, atrial fibrillation, thoracic aortic aneurysm and vascular stiffness related changes. Recent studies have shown that there is a significant synergy between cytoskeletal regulation and epigenetic processes. Notably, epigenetic alterations have been identified as one of...

Aging is a biologically tractable process. Telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) has emerged as an upstream regulator coordinating several hallmarks of aging across preclinical models. Beyond maintaining telomeres, TERT influences mitochondrial health, epigenetic regulation, inflammation and stem cell function. Multiple translational strategies are being explored to modulate TERT. In mice and human cell models, restoration of physiological-range TERT expression characteristic of younger cells,...

Unsupervised serious video games on the SmartMe&You home telemonitoring platform may enable the assessment of cognitive fluctuations in older individuals, with or without cognitive deficits. Here, we tested their validity in cognitively unimpaired older adults (Healthy) and patients with mild cognitive impairment and mild to moderate dementia due to Parkinson's disease (PDCD). Such validity was assessed using Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) scores and resting-state eyes-closed...

Epigenetic clocks derived from DNA methylation robustly predict biological aging, health, and mortality, yet differ substantially in their predictive profiles. The biological processes underlying these differences remain poorly understood. Using data from 3227 participants in the U.S. Health and Retirement Study, with contemporaneous DNA methylation and RNA-sequencing, we examined the five most widely used epigenetic clocks (Horvath, Hannum, PhenoAge, GrimAge, and DunedinPACE). We conducted...

CONCLUSIONS: Objectively measured sensory impairments were highly prevalent among US older adults and were associated with an increased risk of anxiety, but not depressive symptoms over a short follow-up duration. Self-reports considerably underestimated true prevalence of mild- to- moderate impairment, emphasizing the need for routine objective assessment in clinical practice and research.

CONCLUSIONS: The T-EAT-10 is a practical and highly effective screening tool for identifying aspiration pneumonia risk in institutionalized elderly populations. A clinical threshold of >12 is recommended for identifying high-risk residents, which is substantially higher than the standard dysphagia screening cut-off. Systematic screening using T-EAT-10 and NUFFE-TR should be integrated into routine geriatric care in nursing homes to improve preventive strategies.

Aging hematopoiesis exhibits progressive myeloid skewing and impaired lymphopoiesis, driving age-related blood disorders. We show that multipotent progenitors (MPPs) mediate this lineage imbalance. Aging expands myeloid-biased MPP3 cells while functionally compromising MPP4 lymphoid potential, collectively skewing hematopoietic output toward the myeloid lineage. We identify Bcl11a as a dosage-sensitive regulator of MPP fate: Bcl11a suppresses Fer to restrain premature myeloid differentiation in...

CONCLUSION: Public health strategies should emphasize physical activity, healthy diets, weight control, and improved management of chronic diseases. These efforts align with the sustainable development goal 3 (SDG 3); Good Health and Well-being, particularly Target 3.4, which aims to reduce premature mortality from non-communicable diseases through prevention and treatment by 2030.

Longevity-promoting interventions commonly entail functional trade-offs, raising the unresolved question of whether lifespan extension necessarily compromises physiological performance. Here, utilizing a chemically defined diet (CDD) in Drosophila melanogaster, we systematically evaluated a multimodal intervention combining methionine restriction (MR), taurine supplementation (Tau), and moderate exercise. This combinatorial approach additively extended lifespan, preserved reproductive capacity,...