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Not all vitamin D supplements are created equal, and new research suggests that one popular form may have an unexpected downside. Scientists found that taking vitamin D2 can actually lower the body's levels of vitamin D3, the form naturally produced by sunlight and more effective at boosting overall vitamin D. Previous studies also suggest that vitamin D3 may provide stronger immune protection against viruses and bacteria.

A large analysis of 22 studies found that the trans fats naturally present in dairy foods such as milk, butter, yogurt, and cheese do not appear to raise the risk of heart disease or type 2 diabetes. Unlike industrial trans fats from partially hydrogenated oils, dairy trans fats showed no meaningful harmful effects on blood fats in controlled trials and were not linked to higher rates of heart disease, stroke, cardiovascular death, or diabetes in long-term studies.

A study of more than 130,000 babies born in Georgia found that hundreds of fathers died within the first five years of their child’s life, and about 60% of those deaths were potentially preventable. Homicide, accidental injuries, suicide, and drug overdoses accounted for most of the preventable deaths, highlighting what researchers call a major blind spot in public health.

A Stanford-designed molecule turns a major lymphoma-promoting protein against cancer cells, activating their own self-destruct machinery instead of simply blocking tumor growth. In mice, the treatment completely eliminated aggressive human lymphoma tumors within 11 days, although much more testing is needed before it could reach patients.

Eating more sugar while taking antibiotics was linked to greater disruption of the gut microbiome and increased growth of potentially harmful bacteria. Researchers say temporarily cutting back on sweets during and after antibiotic treatment could be a simple way to reduce this damage, though clinical trials are still needed.

Climate change appears to have made food scarce for chinstrap penguins, which had numbered more than 1 million on a remote South Atlantic island

Blocking a receptor called P2X7 significantly reduced inflammation in human brain tissue, revealing a potential new treatment strategy for neurological and psychiatric disorders. The discovery could help researchers repurpose existing drugs for conditions including traumatic brain injury, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, depression, and schizophrenia.

Ancient swimming creature provides clues to when nursing evolved

Microglia are the primary immune cells of the brain, but their role in Parkinson's disease is not fully understood. Chronic microglial activation is toxic to neurons, but in the early stages of pathology, microglia also exert beneficial functions. We used induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived coculture models to investigate how human microglia respond to α-synuclein aggregates that form de novo inside human dopaminergic neurons with α-synuclein gene triplication or are triggered by...

Aging is associated with profound alterations in gut microbiota composition and function, including reduced production of short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), yet it remains unclear whether these age-related microbial changes directly contribute to impaired antiviral defense during influenza A virus (IAV) infection. To address this question, we first characterized age-associated alterations of the gut microbiome and SCFA-related metabolic potential in a murine model of IAV infection. We then used a...

Aging is the predominant risk factor for cardiac dysfunction, driven primarily through a decline in cardiomyocyte and overall myocardial performance. Cellular senescence is becoming increasingly linked to its development, as senescent cardiomyocytes and interstitial cells accumulate with age and exhibit persistent DNA damage, mitochondrial dysfunction, and inflammation that collectively impair ventricular relaxation and contractility. Senolytics, which selectively eliminate senescent cells,...

Age-associated loss of skeletal muscle mass and function, also known as sarcopenia, is closely linked to mitochondrial dysfunction. In this study, we report that senescent skeletal muscle myoblasts exhibit elevated activity and expression of the enzyme glutaminase (GLS1), which is mediated by p38 MAPK signaling and leads to intracellular urea accumulation that impairs mitochondrial function. Pharmacological inhibition of GLS1 with CB-839 reduced urea levels, restored the expression of electron...

Community context is an important determinant of health for older and aging adults. However, much of the research examining these associations has focused on Western contexts. Features and attributes of communities in low- and middle-income countries that might also shape health outcomes among older adults are less understood. This cross-sectional study examines community-level toilet coverage in India as a possible determinant of depression among adults over 45. We applied a multilevel modeling...

Dietary patterns are modifiable determinants of dementia risk, but the interactions between individual dietary preference profiles, biological aging, and dementia risk remain unclear. We aimed to investigate associations of dietary preference profiles with biological aging and incident dementia, as well as the potential modifying effect of genetic susceptibility. Dietary preference profiles were identified using latent profile analysis on food preferences questionnaire data. Cox models estimated...

AgingHallmarksDB is an interactive web platform designed to facilitate systems-level aging research centered on 11 aging hallmarks. It comprises 3111 aging hallmark-associated genes integrated from seven established databases, including a high-confidence consensus set comprising 1089 genes. It further incorporates tissue, cell-type class, exosomes, protein-protein and regulatory interactions to facilitate deeper biological insights. AgingHallmarksDB enables over representation analysis (ORA) and...

CONCLUSION: Our findings underscore the relevance of wealth as an important socioeconomic resource for cognitive health beyond income and education, particularly in old age, when income is typically reduced. Overall, the results support modest concurrent associations between personality, SES, and episodic memory levels, but provide hardly any evidence for longitudinal effects. More frequent and longer-term longitudinal assessments are needed to clarify potential effects on cognitive aging.

Aldabra giant tortoises (Aldabrachelys gigantea) are exceptionally long-lived. We sequenced the genome and methylome of Jonathan, a 194-year-old Aldabra, to explore the molecular basis of his longevity. Relative to other giant tortoises (A. gigantea and Chelonoidis abingdonii), Jonathan has unique gene variants in most aging pathways. Moreover, Jonathan has substantial DNA methylation and methylation entropy changes compared to four other Aldabras ranging in age from a 5-year-old juvenile to...

The cis-regulatory potential of human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs) that have accumulated in our genome affects diverse host processes, including embryonic development and malignancy, where HERV epigenetic control is reduced. Non-small cell lung cancer optimal growth requires cancer cell-intrinsic expression of the calcium-binding protein calbindin under the control of a HERVH integrant on chromosome 8q21.3. Chimeric transcription of HERVH and CALB1, encoding calbindin, is also observed in...

In vitro models of vascular disease have focused primarily on the pathophysiology of smooth muscle cell (SMC) or endothelial cell (EC). Adventitial fibroblasts can contribute to disease progression, but their specific influence is not well understood in different disease contexts. To elucidate fibroblast's impact on vascular pathology, we developed trilayer tissue-engineered blood vessels (TEBVs) with SMCs, ECs, and fibroblasts. We modeled atherosclerosis in the accelerated aging disease,...

CONCLUSION: In this cross-sectional analysis, higher AIP, reflecting atherogenic dyslipidemia, was associated with a modestly higher DBS-derived p-tau217 concentration in older adults. The biological and clinical significance of this association remains to be established in longitudinal and multimodal studies.