Aging & Longevity

In a study recently published in Nature, Belk et al.¹ use somatic mutations to demonstrate that bone marrow-derived cells enter the aging human brain and resemble microglia. The aged microglial compartment may therefore have a substantial hematopoietic contribution, and its clonal composition may prove important for stem-cell-based microglial replacement.

CONCLUSIONS: Anthropometric adiposity measures, particularly BMI, WC, and WHtR, were more consistently related to MRI-derived brain age gap than to brief cognitive screening performance in a cohort of middle-aged and older adults. These findings describe cross-sectional associations with older predicted brain age, especially at higher adiposity levels.

CONCLUSIONS: These data suggest that circulating levels of miR-181b-3p, miR-490-5p, and miR-511-5p might serve as markers of frailty in old people with CVD and that miR-181b-3p and miR-490-5p might be functionally linked to the pathophysiology of the syndrome through their effects on cellular senescence and inflammation.

The Mexican cavefish, Astyanax mexicanus, is a powerful evolutionary model for investigating how adaptation to extreme environments reshapes vertebrate physiology. Multiple cave populations have independently evolved under subterranean conditions, acquiring traits including insulin resistance, persistent hyperglycaemia, increased adiposity, altered sleep patterns, hypoxia tolerance and extensive metabolic reprogramming. Despite these differences, cavefish exhibit lifespans comparable to those of...

In older adult gait research, "healthy" often characterizes study samples yet is typically defined by absence of disease rather than by positive characterization. This matters beyond gait, because such samples anchor reference values, mobility thresholds, and estimates of age-related decline. This scoping review examined how "healthy" is defined and operationalized in the older adult gait literature. Following PRISMA-ScR guidance, a search of Web of Science, SPORTDiscus, MEDLINE, and PubMed...

Resistant hypertension (RH) is increasingly linked to accelerated vascular aging and is particularly prevalent among older and obese individuals. Cellular senescence has emerged as a potential driver of vascular aging, but its contribution to RH remains unclear. We examined age and body mass index (BMI) in the WalkByLab cohort and assessed whether RH was associated with vascular features consistent with accelerated aging. Obesity-related transcriptomic datasets were integrated with a curated...

Pharmacotherapies for obesity and type 2 diabetes are increasingly being evaluated for their effects on cognition and brain health. Evidence from preclinical models, observational cohorts, and clinical trials has intensified interest, but findings remain mixed. A central challenge is to determine whether potential cognitive effects arise from direct actions on neural circuits, indirect consequences of improved cardiometabolic health, or both. This Review examines the evidence across...

CONCLUSION: This study shows for the first time age-related mitophagy impairment in human neurons, and confirms findings of age-related mitochondrial impairments in human neurons. By doing so, this study paves the way for more in-depth mechanistic studies that would allow for the identification of therapeutic targets for anti-aging treatment and in the context of age-associated neurodegenerative diseases.

Brain aging is associated with chronic, low-grade inflammation known as inflammaging, which is largely driven by senescent glial cells secreting pro-inflammatory factors termed as senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP). In humans, the release of SASP factors in the brain is linked with an increased risk for the development of neurodegenerative disorders; thus, elucidating the underlying molecular mechanisms is essential for understanding the pathophysiology of brain aging. Both NF-κB...

The decay of smooth muscle contractility is a major trigger of aging-related intestinal hypomotility, which imposes a substantial healthcare burden. Despite this, effective targeted therapy for this condition remains unavailable. Here, we identified the probiotic Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis BL-99 as a microbiota modulator that restores gut motility through the bile acid (BA)-mediated rescue of smooth muscle contractile function. In a randomized, double-blind clinical trial...

Immune system changes with healthy aging lead to chronic systemic inflammation termed inflammaging, contributing to age-related pathologies. Alveolar macrophages (AMs) maintain lung homeostasis and health. The impact of inflammaging on AM populations requires further definition. Herein, we examined the effect of healthy old age on the phenotype and ontogeny of AMs from mice, non-human primates and humans. We identify three AM subpopulations in old age, including a CD11c^(+)CD11b^(+) population...

Early-life nutrition shapes lifelong health, yet the long-term consequences of childhood overnutrition, particularly on musculoskeletal aging, remain unclear. Here, we show that neonatal overfeeding acts as a developmental insult that accelerates age-related sarcopenia in both sexes. Using different mouse models, early overnutrition shortens lifespan and exacerbates late-life muscle atrophy, accompanied by metabolic dysfunction. Mechanistically, neonatal overfeeding disrupts goblet cell...

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The extent to which whole-blood NAD levels are altered in human disease or ageing remains controversial. Here we conducted 1,340 measurements in 1,068 adults, and found that whole-blood NAD levels do not decline with age in healthy individuals; they remain stable in males and increase in females, but are reduced in chronic diseases, specifically cardiovascular disease and hypertension. These findings indicate that whole-blood NAD levels track cardiovascular disease rather than chronological age....

Fibrous materials, ranging from connective tissues^(1-4) to engineered composites^(5-8), are vital to many biological and man-made systems, optimized to withstand complex in operando or in vivo loading. The load-bearing capacity of intervertebral discs (IVDs) of the spine depends on a hierarchical extracellular matrix, where plywood-like lamellae of collagen fibres in the annulus fibrosus contain nanometre-scale fibrils built from staggered triple-helical monomers^(4,9,10). How intact IVDs...

Perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells on rough textured substrates are at present limited by a critical trade-off in self-assembled monolayer (SAM) design because increasing molecular conjugation enhances conductivity but often leads to unfavourable aggregation that impairs conformal coverage^(1,2). Here we overcome this challenge using a rationally engineered molecular spatial conjugation that incorporates tailored intramolecular distortion to suppress excess π-π stacking without sacrificing...

Sarcopenia is a progressive age-related skeletal muscle disorder characterized by the decline of muscle mass and function, driven by mitochondrial dysfunction, oxidative stress, and chronic low-grade inflammation. Polyphenols have been proposed as candidate modulators of these pathways on mechanistic and preclinical grounds, but whether this plausibility translates into measurable structural and functional benefit in clinical trials remains unresolved. A systematic review following PRISMA 2020...

Motor lateralization, often expressed behaviorally as interlimb asymmetry, reflects distinct specializations of the dominant and nondominant motor systems. Although healthy aging has been associated with reduced motor lateralization, most previous studies have characterized this effect using coarse performance measures rather than specific motor-control processes. Here, we examined whether healthy aging alters the lateralization of gravity-related motor optimization, a motor-planning process...

Previous neuroimaging studies have demonstrated that beta-amyloid (Aβ) plaques and neurofibrillary tangles of tau are associated with disruptions in neurocognitive function in Alzheimer's disease. However, the relationship between Aβ, tau deposition, and functional network connectivity in normal aging and mild cognitive impairment remains unclear. Using resting-state functional MRI and Aβ PET and tau PET data from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI), we applied multiple...

DNA methylation (DNAm) is a key epigenetic mechanism implicated in brain aging, yet methylation trajectories across the lifespan in the primate brain remain poorly understood. To characterize age-associated DNAm patterns in the hippocampus, we generated reduced representation bisulfite sequencing (RRBS) data from 86 rhesus macaque hippocampus samples spanning ~3-35 years of age (females = 56; males = 30). CpG-level analyses revealed minimal age-associated changes in mean methylation, with sites...