Aging & Longevity

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: Home care and dementia were the primary drivers of nursing home entry in Sweden between 2020 and 2022, while social factors played a smaller role. Further investigations should ensure that those with dementia who are living alone or have multimorbidity are receiving adequate care. With continued population aging, it is essential that we monitor and adapt our policies and systems to ensure needs dictate access to care.

Mutations accumulate with age in most human tissues. While some undergo clonal expansion and contribute to disease, the mutational burden tolerated by a normal cell without functional decline remains unknown. Here, we repeatedly treat proliferating human primary fibroblasts with the point mutagen N-ethyl-N-nitrosourea, and analyze mutation burden by single-cell whole-genome sequencing. Mutation burden increases linearly to ~56,000 single-nucleotide variants per cell, with only a modest reduction...

Dielectric elastomers are soft electroactive polymers capable of large-strain actuation with the moniker artificial muscle. However, current dielectric elastomers exhibit limited operational stability when operated at strain and energy density in the neighborhood of natural muscles, due to mechanical fatigue or electrical breakdown. In this work, we design a dielectric elastomer comprising a bimodal network structure and zwitterionic side groups to overcome electro-mechanical instability and...

Age-related decline of the neuromuscular junction (NMJ), the peripheral synapse that controls muscle contraction, contributes to muscle weakness and impaired motor function in aging. The NMJ comprises a motor axon terminal, a skeletal muscle fibre, and terminal Schwann cells (tSC). Neurotrophin signalling is essential for mature NMJ organisation, with the p75 receptor acting as a key regulator of its morphology and function. However, the potential contribution of p75 to age-related NMJ decline...

Vaginal aging is a multifactorial biological process characterized by structural, functional, and molecular alterations driven primarily by estrogen decline. This review summarizes current evidence on potential biomarkers across five domains: physiological parameters, imaging features, histological changes, and molecular alterations. We further discuss methodological challenges and future research directions necessary to establish standardized and clinically applicable biomarkers. Understanding...

Clove (Syzygium aromaticum) extracts promote longevity in several model systems, yet the underlying molecular mechanisms responsible for the pro-longevity remain poorly defined. This study utilized a Saccharomyces cerevisiae model to investigate how clove extracts modulate two primary hallmarks of cellular aging: oxidative damage and the decline of protein quality control systems. Clove extracts promoted increased chronological lifespan (CLS) of yeast cells. The change in longevity was...

Aging is accompanied by a progressive decline in intestinal barrier integrity, resulting in increased permeability to luminal microbes and microbial products and contributing to chronic low-grade inflammation ("inflammaging"). While epithelial and microbial changes have been extensively studied, the role of intestinal T cells as active regulators of barrier homeostasis during aging remains underappreciated. The gut harbors the largest population of T cells in the body, including diverse...

CONCLUSIONS: Loneliness emerged as the factor most consistently associated with emotional distress in older adults. These findings underscore the importance of designing public policies and psychosocial interventions focused on reducing unwanted loneliness and strengthening social connectedness in both institutional and community settings.

CONCLUSIONS: Self-reported driving concerns demonstrate predictive validity for future crashes, but a substantial minority of crash-involved drivers remain undetected by self-report. Education and TMT-B performance may serve as clinically actionable markers for identifying these "silent" at-risk drivers.

The global increase in neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease has prompted the search for effective non-pharmacological interventions. Chrono-exercise which is the physical training aligned with circadian rhythms has emerged as a novel strategy to strengthen cognitive resilience. This study explores the impact of chrono-exercises, incorporating aerobic, resistance, and combined modalities, performed at the early dark (ZT13) and early light (ZT1) phases in an aluminum chloride...

Depression and Alzheimer's Disease (AD) are both diagnosed in women twice as often as in men. Moreover, a history of untreated depression confers a 2-to-5-fold increase in the risk of developing dementia. Finally, biological factors such as sex differences in immune response increase rates of depressive pathology among women. Importantly, the prevalence of mid-to-late-life depression (MLD) worldwide and its misdiagnosis due to clinical overlap with AD hinder accurate assessment and timely...

Despite extensive research, molecular differences in human populations and the influence of ancestry, age, geography, and diet are poorly understood. We performed comprehensive multiomics profiling (including genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, lipidomics, metallomics, glycomics, and microbiomics) on samples from 322 healthy individuals of European, East Asian, and South Asian ancestry across multiple continents. We identified ethnicity-associated molecular features linked to...

Lipid droplets (LDs) are lipid-storage organelles that have gained interest in neurodegenerative diseases, yet their physiological role in the brain is not fully understood. Classical LD detection using lipophilic dyes like BODIPY 493/503 (BD493) or antibodies against LD coat proteins typically reveals few LDs in healthy brain tissue. In contrast, our recently developed endogenous LD-reporter mouse showed numerous LDs in the developing and adult brain without staining. To understand this...

Cellular senescence is increasingly recognized as a fundamental driver of cardiovascular ageing; however, its molecular heterogeneity, cell-type specificity, and translational relevance remain incompletely understood. Accumulating evidence indicates that cardiovascular senescence is not a uniform or cell-autonomous process, but rather an emergent property of interacting endothelial, vascular smooth muscle, immune, and stromal cell networks shaped by metabolic stress, immune dysregulation, and...

Metal ions are indispensable for sustaining normal cellular functions and preserving tissue integrity, as they participate in enzymatic catalysis, signal transduction, and antioxidant defense. However, dysregulation of metal ion homeostasis, particularly during aging, disrupts cellular balance and significantly drives the development and progression of age-related ocular diseases, including age-related macular degeneration, glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy, and cataracts. Specifically, metal ions...

Echoing the regenerative powers of living organisms, self-healing materials can recover from damage, extending their lifespan and enhancing dependability, thus holding broad applications promise across diverse fields, including biological tissue engineering, soft robotics, flexible electronics, and automotive industries. Nonetheless, self-healing materials typically suffer from poor mechanical properties, a limitation stemming from the inherent trade-off between mechanical robustness and...

Aging is associated with detrimental changes in chromatin structure and gene expression, contributing to inflammation, metabolic decline and tissue dysfunction. SIRT6, a histone deacetylase, plays a key role in maintaining chromatin integrity and promoting longevity. Our multi-omics approach, combining ATAC-seq, methylome and RNA-seq shows that aging leads to increased chromatin accessibility in the male murine liver, accompanied by upregulation of inflammation and downregulation of metabolic...

A range of environmental, lifestyle and biological exposures across the lifespan - varying in timing, duration and intensity - interact with genetic factors to shape an individual's neurocognitive phenotype. By referring to the totality of exposures that an individual has experienced in their life so far, the exposome offers a valuable concept to better understand interindividual variability in not only brain-behaviour phenotype but also vulnerability and resilience to brain diseases. Numerous...

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Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD^(+)) levels in blood and tissues are widely proposed to decline with age, yet evidence in human blood is inconsistent. Using a rigorously validated ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with high-resolution mass spectrometry system that accounts for real-world analytical variability, we quantify NAD^(+) across seven independent human cohorts. We find that whole-blood NAD^(+) levels remain remarkably stable with age and across lifestyle...