Aging
Extending national breast cancer screening programs to women over the age of 70 does not decrease cancers detected at advanced stages, according to new research at the European Breast Cancer Conference.
Instead, extending screening programs to older women results in a large proportion of women being over-treated, and at risk from the harmful effects of such treatment, because these women were more likely to die from other causes than from any tumors detected in the early stages of growth.
Dr Gerrit-Jan Liefers (MD, PhD), a surgical oncologist and head of the geriatric oncology research group…
There has long been a hypothesis that a starvation diet can extend lifespan.
The only way it was really shown was by weaning mice on such a diet - and that isn't really ethical for human babies. And it doesn't work in the wild, because dietary restriction compromises the immune system’s ability to fight off disease and reduces the muscle strength necessary to flee a predator. Most animals don't live long enough to catch 'old age' diseases like cancer and the late-life pathologies that humans do.
A new paper in BioEssays also finds that consuming a diet very low in nutrients can extend…
Just 20 percent of UK people with hearing problems actually wear a hearing aid, according to a new analysis in the journal Ear and Hearing which looked at the habits of 160,000 aged 40 to 69 years.
The results showed that 10.7 per cent of adults had significant hearing problems when listening to speech in the presence of background noise but only 2.1 per cent used a hearing aid. One in 10 middle aged adults had substantial hearing problems and were more likely to be from a working class or ethnic minority background.
Dr Piers Dawes, from The University of Manchester's Audiology and…
Colon cancer incidence rates have dropped sharply - 30 percent in the U.S. in the last 10 years, among adults 50 and older.
The drop has been attributed to the widespread uptake of colonoscopy, with the largest decrease in people over age 65. Colonoscopy use has almost tripled among adults ages 50 to 75, from 19 percent in 2000 to 55 percent in 2010.
The findings come from Colorectal Cancer Statistics, 2014, and are published in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians. The article and its companion report, Colorectal Cancer Facts&Figures, were released today by American Cancer Society…
A new study in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society found that a diet high in animal protein - meat - may helped elderly individuals function at higher levels physically.
Due to increasing life expectancies in many countries, increasing numbers of elderly people are living with functional decline, such as declines in cognitive ability and activities of daily living. Functional decline can have profound effects on health and the economy. Research suggests that aging may reduce the body's ability to absorb or process proteins, which could mean that protein requirements increase with…
Research in The New England Journal of Medicine and Human and Molecular Genetics journals finds that mutation in the STAG3 gene is the major cause of human fertility disorders, as it provokes a loss of function of the protein it encodes.
STAG3 encodes a meiosis-specific subunit of the cohesin ring, the biological process through which, from a diploid somatic cell, a haploid cell or gamete is produced.
Cohesins are protein complexes that bind two straps of DNA and are implicated in its repair, replication and recombination, as well as in its chromosomal stability, transcription…
Are you worried you are losing your memory and wonder if you might have Alzheimer's coming?
You have a good chance of being correct. Self-reported memory complaints predict clinical memory impairment later in life rather well, according to a new paper. Erin Abner, Ph.D, an assistant professor at the University of Kentucky's Sanders-Brown Center on Aging, asked 3,701 men aged 60 and older a simple question: "Have you noticed any change in your memory since you last came in?"
That answers told a rather accurate medical tale. "It seems that subjective memory complaint can be…
The thyroid gland has an important role in regulating the body's metabolism, but researchers say it can also influence mental health. Past research found links between an increased risk of depression and both over- and under-active thyroid glands. Now, a new study in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism has found an association between depression and thyroid activity variations...even within the normal range.
To determine how active the thyroid gland was, researchers measured levels of thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH), which is the body's signal to the thyroid…
Researchers have created an adult stem cell based method for restoring strength to damaged skeletal muscles in the elderly.
Skeletal muscles are some of the most important muscles in the body, supporting functions such as sitting, standing, blinking and swallowing. In aging individuals, the function of these muscles significantly decreases. People lose fifteen percent of muscle mass every single year after the age of 75, a trend that is irreversible.
Through tracing the signaling pathways of the cells, the researchers determined that during aging, a subpopulation of…
Survey results related to how men approach old age found that happiness remains relatively stable for some 80 percent of the population, but perceptions of unhappiness – or dealing with "hassles" – tends to get worse once you are about 65-70 years old.
The reasons vary, researchers say, but may be because of health issues, cognitive decline or the loss of a spouse or friends.
The researchers used data from the Veterans Affairs Normative Aging Study, which looked at 1,315 men ages 53 to 85 years of age – predominantly comprised of white males who were initially in good health at entry into the…