Aging & Longevity

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: Families continue to shoulder a substantial share of aging-related care expenses, with financial burdens disproportionately concentrated among households providing intensive caregiving and those with fewer economic resources. These findings underline the hidden costs of population aging that are borne inequitably across socioeconomic status and signal the need for policy solutions that mitigate the financial burden on families supporting aging parents.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: In older memory clinic patients, AF was associated with sex-specific CSVD patterns: greater WMH burden in men and more microbleeds in women. WMH substantially mediated AF-related decline in physical performance, particularly in men, suggesting that CSVD is an important pathway linking AF to physical dysfunction. These findings underscore the need for sex-specific risk stratification and highlight CSVD as a therapeutic target to preserve physical function in patients...

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: Customized structured exercise effectively reduces age-related low-grade inflammation, especially aerobic and resistance training. These results offer actionable insights for clinicians and policymakers working to improve health outcomes in older adults.

Aging and its associated diseases are characterized by a complex interplay of cellular dysfunction, chronic inflammation, and tissue degeneration. Dysregulated cell death and the resulting inflammatory responses are pivotal drivers of this pathological synergy. Among various cell demise pathways, programmed cell death (PCD) mechanisms, including apoptosis, necroptosis, and pyroptosis, are critical for maintaining homeostasis but can drive pathology when aberrantly activated. Crucially, they...

Aging of the skeleton is a hallmark of organismal decline and underlies prevalent age-related disorders such as osteoporosis and osteoarthritis. Bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs), the primary source of osteoblasts, undergo profound functional deterioration during senescence, leading to an imbalance between bone formation and resorption. This review systematically summarizes the key features of BMSC senescence, including impaired proliferation and differentiation, epigenetic...

Biological aging is increasingly understood as a heterogeneous, multi-system process marked by organ-level vulnerability, cross-organ coordination, and variation in resilience. Advances in plasma proteomics, metabolomics, imaging, DNA methylation, digital biomarkers, and genetic epidemiology have enabled organ-level, system-level, and cross-organ age models, but these measures are often interpreted more strongly than the evidence permits. In this Review, we synthesize evidence on biological age...

Identifying senescent cells via single-cell transcriptome profiling data remains challenging due to cellular heterogeneity and overlap with other cellular states. Here, we present SenFlag, a streamlined gene signature for enhanced identification of senescent cells based on integration of core gene expression features. SenFlag was derived through systematic assessment of bulk and single-cell RNA-sequencing datasets across multiple senescence models. It captures a conserved transcriptional program...

CONCLUSIONS: These insights advocate optimizing medical resources, bolstering primary care, and fostering healthy lifestyles to reduce the burden of multimorbidity among older Chinese adults.

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Radiation-induced pulmonary fibrosis (RIPF) is a severe complication of thoracic radiotherapy with limited effective treatment options. Cellular senescence has emerged as a critical driver of age-related tissue fibrosis; however, its role in RIPF and potential as a therapeutic target are underexplored. In this study, we investigated whether emodin, a natural compound with known anti-aging properties, alleviates RIPF by suppressing radiation-induced cellular senescence. In a mouse model exposed...

Population aging requires innovative technological strategies that promote autonomy, functionality, and well-being in old age. In this context, mixed reality (MR), a technology that integrates physical and digital elements in a shared and interactive real-time environment, emerges as a promising alternative. To analyze the current state of evidence on the use of MR in the care of older adults, including its theoretical and practical implications. Scientific articles were reviewed in Scopus, Web...

Chronological age is the strongest risk factor for cardiovascular disease, yet individual trajectories of cardiovascular aging, particularly during late life, remain incompletely characterized. We performed quarterly echocardiography in 58 male C57BL/6 mice from 6 months until natural death, focusing on long-lived mice surviving beyond the cohort median of 24 months. Progressive body weight loss after 18-21 months defined the frailty transition and partitioned each mouse's lifespan into...

Microglia, the resident immune cells of the central nervous system, dynamically respond to signals from their microenvironment, including adjacent neurons. Among these signals, nuclear contents released from damaged neurons have been implicated in triggering inflammatory microglial responses. Recently, we found that micronuclei (MNs) derived from neurons during the early postnatal stage act as intercellular mediators that alter the microglial characteristics. However, it remains unclear whether...

White matter (WM) abnormalities have emerged as a critical element in Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathogenesis, shifting from their former status as a passive consequence to an active contributor to disease progression. Notably, microstructural WM alterations, detectable early via advanced neuroimaging techniques such as diffusion tensor imaging, frequently precede overt gray matter atrophy and cognitive decline, highlighting their potential as early contributors to AD pathogenesis. The origins of...

Heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) accounts for approximately half of all heart failure cases and predominantly affects older individuals, yet effective treatments remain limited. The molecular mechanisms linking cardiac aging to HFpEF are not fully understood. Here we show that the transcriptional regulator Sub1 is upregulated in aged hearts and in mouse models of HFpEF. Cardiac overexpression of Sub1 shortens lifespan, exacerbates diastolic dysfunction, and accelerates...

Cellular aging is accompanied by progressive alterations in metabolic homeostasis, stress adaptation, and organelle function. Increasing evidence suggests that functional coordination among membrane-bound organelles, including mitochondria, the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), lysosomes, peroxisomes, and the Golgi apparatus, contributes to cellular homeostasis during aging. However, the mechanisms linking kinase signaling to specific inter-organelle contact sites or communication pathways remain...

CONCLUSIONS: In humans, available evidence suggests that nutritional interventions may preferentially affect senescence-associated inflammatory and secretory biomarker profiles, particularly SASP-related mediators, rather than markers more directly related to senescent cell abundance. However, because SASP factors and circulating cytokines are heterogeneous and not specific to senescent cells, these findings should be interpreted as evidence for possible modulation of senescence-associated...

CONCLUSIONS: We unveiled the critical role of Sirt3 in maintaining mitochondrial homeostasis and mitigating intervertebral disc degeneration progression via regulating Ckm and Atp2a1. We provide a novel therapeutic strategy of activating of Sirt3 by 2-APQC to treat intervertebral disc degeneration.