Aging

Aging is not a smooth and gradual process. For instance, around 6.5% of people aged between 40 and 59 have coronary artery disease, a prevalence which jumps to 19.8% for people aged 60 to 79. Research inspired by such observations and published in the journal Nature Aging, has found that aging occurs in at least two accelerated bursts, at ages 44 and 60. This finding emerged after the researchers conducted a longitudinal study of 108 people from diverse ethnic backgrounds, residing in California, aged between 25 years and 75 years (median, 55.7 years) and 51.9% of whom were female. They were…

Alzhiemer’s, the most common form of dementia, is increasingly prevalent. Estimates from the Alzheimer’s Association place the number of Americans suffering from Alzheimer’s and aged 65 and older, at 6.9 million.  Seventy-three percent of Alzheimer’s sufferers are aged 75 or older. Alzheimer’s prevalence is expected to rise to 11.2 million by 2040 and 12.7 million by 2050. Yet, even as the economic and social cost of Alzheimer’s rises, alongside advances in what we know about the disease, effective treatments for Alzheimer’s have not been found. Furthermore, novel treatments that defy…

In mice, caloric restriction has been found to increase aging but obviously mice are not little people, and mice are weaned on a starvation diet. That cannot and will never happen in humans. Yet  restricting calories even by 20 percent has been shown to promote longer life in animal models. As we age, our cells replicate, but some telomeres are lost when chromosomes are copied to the new cell, the telomeres become shorter and after enough replication, the protective cap of telomeres completely dissipates. If the genetic information in the chromosome is damaged, future reproduction or…

People are living better lives for longer than ever but an EXPLORATORY study using a computer simulation says there is reason for concern; people are getting cancer younger than ever. The authors analyzed results of blood samples from 148,724 people ages 37 to 54 in the UK Biobank and focused on metrics 'linked' to aging, like albumin and glucose. Those nine values were put into the 'mPhenoAge algorithm to estimate biological age and that age was compared to actual age. Are we really aging worse than previous generations? No. On the left, Elizabeth Taylor at 50. On the right, Monica…

A new exploratory paper links sleeping pills to dementia but while the press release uses the term risk frequently, it minimizes a giant confounder; older people sleep less and people who have not yet received a dementia diagnosis may go on sleeping medication to try and mitigate restlessness. Another confounder is that they only find a higher correlation in white people. Science does not work that way, but epidemiology and statistics can do anything. Data were drawn from senior citizens (average age 74) registered in the Health, Aging and Body Composition study who were followed, on average…

California gives free medical care to a lot of people but that doesn't mean they are getting access. Many doctors won't accept new patients at all due to the increased number of patients, while an alarming number of offices ask what kind of insurance people have before declaring someone can't get an appointment for six months if it's California state insurance. That may be why despite guidelines recommending screening, a shocking number of California women 65 and older are facing late-stage cervical cancer diagnoses and dying from the disease. Following the introduction and widespread…

Since 1975, stroke mortality plummeted from 88 to 31 per 100,0000 for women and 112 to 39 per 100,0000 for men, but since 2020 it has been creeping back up.  Strokes haven't seen a huge resurgence yet because Baby Boomers, and soon Generation X, have the biggest risk for it like aging is for most diseases. For example, a 10 percent reduction in the fatality rate for 75-year-olds would more than offset a doubling of the fatality rate among 35-year-olds because strokes are 100 times more common in 75-year-olds. Yet that Millennials are seeing higher numbers than previous generations…

Very few people are average, that is the problem with using population level statistics in a clinical environment, and why few do it. Yet a population can show what questions to ask, like if there are racial differences in outcomes and why. A recent analysis in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society included data on 2,918 patients aged 75 years or older who were hospitalized for heart attacks at 94 US hospitals from 2013–2016. Black participants had 2-fold higher odds of dying within 6 months, but this elevated risk was no longer significant after adjusting for age, clinical…

Age is relative. If you put two people the same chronological age next to each other, one may look younger while one may nonetheless be biologically younger. Yet age is the biggest risk factor for most diseases even though it doesn't tell much of a health story. Population statistics about age are as pointless in individual care as most epidemiology, but they can provide proxies for biological aging that at least have people taking important things for their future, rather than placebos like a USDA food servings chart. A new study posits that grip strength is associated with accelerated…

What correlation giveth, correlation can taketh away. Statins, taken by some 40 million Americans, may not be helping a lot of them. Statins are used to lower cholesterol levels and reduce their risk of heart disease and stroke. They are endorsed by medical groups and the American Heart Association, but many won't benefit from these drugs based on new research. Basically, healthy people with high cholesterol aren't gaining anything. The literature review of medical trials involving patients taking either a statin or placebo was narrowed to participants with elevated levels of low-density…