Aging & Longevity

The bidirectional non-linear communication between blood pressure (BP) and heartbeat is critical to cardiovascular homeostasis, which remains poorly understood, especially under hypertensive conditions. We implemented transfer entropy (TE), an information-theoretic measure of directional coupling, to characterize such bidirectional coupling between BP and heartbeat and its relationships to arterial stiffness and walking performance in older adults. A total of 493 older adults (201 normotensive...

Individuals with knee osteoarthritis (KOA) have skeletal muscle changes around the knee joint including reduced quadricep muscle mass and increased intermuscular adipose tissue (IMAT). We examined the cellular composition and transcriptional profiles using single-nuclei RNA sequencing in IMAT from 6 older women with KOA and knee pain and 5 older women without KOA or knee pain from the Study of Muscle, Mobility and Aging (SOMMA). From the resulting 21,436 nuclei, we identified 6 major cell types...

Mitochondrial dysfunction is widely recognized as a key driver of aging and neurodegenerative diseases, with mitophagy acting as an essential cellular mechanism for the selective clearance of damaged mitochondria. While pharmacological activation of mitophagy has been reported to exert beneficial effects across multiple neurodegenerative diseases, its functional relevance in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) remains poorly characterized. Our recent study published in EMBO Molecular Medicine...

CONCLUSIONS: Older adults have a compartmentalized understanding of brain health, often accompanied by misconceptions and tend to hold negative attitudes toward brain health promotion, highlighting an urgent need for professional guidance to provide correct education and direction. Our study reveals that effective brain health promotion requires enhancing internal motivation, building external support networks, and overcoming implementation barriers through integrated strategies, while crucially...

Surfactant proteins, particularly SP-A and SP-D, S100 family members and fibronectin belong to the group of so-called stress-related molecules and share the characteristic of being expressed at anatomical barriers such as the skin, pulmonary/respiratory epithelia, and the intestinal tract. In this context, they constitute part of the body's first line of defence, acting in concert with immune cells to counter a broad spectrum of external and internal stressors (exposomes), potentially fuelling...

Biological aging varies between individuals and may be influenced by health behaviors. Using data from 45,438 UK Biobank participants, we found that a higher proteomic aging score (ProtAgeGap) was linked to lower physical activity and increased risk of type 2 diabetes. The UK Biobank cohort included both men and women. In a 12-week supervised exercise study (MyoGlu) in 26 men, ProtAgeGap decreased by the equivalent of 10 months. While most of the 204 proteins in the score remained stable, some,...

CONCLUSION: The prevalence of LTBI among individuals aged 65 and above in the relatively confined rural areas of Zhejiang Province was as high as 26.78%, which required focused attention with the intensification of population aging. Male sex, smoking duration, and exercise frequency were all associated with LTBI, and the underlying mechanisms needed to be explored in the future. The domestic reagent AIMTB of China showed good agreement with IGRA reagents in old adults, which offered a model for...

BACKGROUND: Accumulating evidence demonstrated that the cerebellum contributes to a wide range of sensorimotor and cognitive functions. However, the relationship between cerebellar function and cognitive abilities in normal aging populations remains unclear.

CONCLUSIONS: The GFBS is a reliable and effective tool for assessing the level of burden among older adults in China. It consists of three dimensions: economic and social burden, personal emotional burden, and social interaction burden. Among older adults, females, widowed individuals, those with chronic illnesses, those lacking a fixed income, and those in poor health experience a higher level of feelings of being a burden.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a major public health concern in societies with increasingly ageing populations. Accumulating evidence implies a specific link between the development of tauopathy, cognitive impairment, and sleep loss in AD patients. P301S mutant tau-transgenic (PS19) mice, modelling frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and AD tauopathy, demonstrate sleep loss and cognitive impairment. We aimed to assess the progression of sleep loss and cognitive decline longitudinally in both sexes of...

Neuromuscular transmission plays a crucial role in muscle function, with differences in neurotransmitter release potentially influenced by sex and aging. While hormonal effects on neurotransmission have been studied, their impact on acetylcholine (ACh) release at the neuromuscular junction remains largely unexplored. Understanding these differences could provide insights into age-related muscle function decline and sex-specific variations in neuromuscular disorders. This study aims to...

Myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) are recognized as a key mediator of immunosuppression in aging, which induce immunosenescence and increase elderly people's susceptibility to infections, cancers, autoimmune diseases, and degenerative diseases. However, the commonly used MDSC markers overlap with those defining healthy and normal neutrophils or monocytes, which makes it challenging to distinguish MDSCs from their myeloid counterparts, and hampers deeper understanding of the...

CONCLUSION: This study demonstrates that Rb1 attenuates DNA damage, thus ameliorating structural remodeling and biomechanical function of the aging aorta, and delaying vascular aging and apoptosis. Our findings suggest that Rb1 counteracts age-related aortic impairment, potentially by targeting the DNA damage pathway, which highlights its therapeutic potential against vascular aging.

CONCLUSION: The findings suggest that adapted tango may be an effective non-pharmacological intervention for enhancing executive and cognitive functions in older adults, with potential implications for promoting cognitive health in aging populations.

Social determinants of health (SDHs) are the primary drivers of health inequalities, but whether biological aging plays a role in linking SDHs to health outcomes remains unclear. Here we utilize detailed information on social determinants across five domains, clinical parameters and electronic health records from the UK Biobank and US NHANES to examine the associations between combined SDHs, accelerated biological aging, and health outcomes. Compared with participants in the favourable SDH...

Lung aging is a multifactorial series of molecular alterations that leads to gradual deterioration of lung function and increased vulnerability to cancer. Tumor communicates with host organs partially through extracellular vesicles; however, the mechanistic drivers and consequences of lung aging in the context of cancer remain unclear. Here we identify cancer cell-secreted dimethylarginine dimethylaminohydrolase-1 (DDAH1) protein induces citrulline accumulation and promotes lung fibrosis and...

CONCLUSION: An 8-week lifestyle counseling intervention significantly improved intrinsic capacity and its domains in older women. These findings support the implementation of targeted, multidomain interventions to promote healthy aging, though longer-term studies are needed to assess sustained benefits.

Sepsis-associated secondary infection often leads to a high mortality rate. Dysfunctional macrophages are primary contributors to inadequate antimicrobial defense in patients with sepsis-associated immunosuppression. Rejuvenating macrophage antibacterial capacity is beneficial for host defense against secondary infection. Here, we developed "BATMAN" (bacteria-targeted transformable macrophage nanorejuvenator), a self-assembling peptide nanoparticle to tackle sepsis-associated secondary infection...

The right vagus nerve is essential for cardiac homeostasis, and its intrathoracic resection can lead to postoperative cardiac complications. Strategies to restore vagal innervation after transection at the cardiac level remain lacking. Here, we show that early reconnection of the right vagus nerve using an implantable chitosan/poly-ε-caprolactone cuff-like nerve guidance conduit preserved cardiac mechanical function in adult male minipigs subjected to right cardiac vagotomy. Treated animals...

Urolithin A is an anti-aging and anti-inflammatory gut bacterial metabolite derived from ellagic acid (EA), a polyphenol abundant in berries and nuts. The conversion of EA to urolithin A involves multiple chemically challenging phenol dehydroxylation steps that produce urolithins with varying bioactivities. Despite their biological and chemical significance, the bacterial enzymes responsible for urolithin production remain largely unidentified. Here, we use differential gene expression analysis,...