Aging

New research into how tendons age has found that the material between tendon fiber bundles stiffens as it gets older, which leads to older athletes being more susceptible to tendon injuries. Experiments in the past have shown that stiffening in aging tendons, specifically the stiffening and decreased resistance to repetitive loading of the tissue which holds tendon fiber bundles in place, is the problem. Tendon fiber bundles are surrounded by the interfascicular matrix (IFM), made up of tissue which enables the fiber bundles to slide past each other and stretch independently. In horses, the…

Researchers have found genetic overlap between Alzheimer's disease (AD) and two significant cardiovascular disease risk factors: high levels of inflammatory C-reactive protein (CRP) and plasma lipids or fats. The findings, based upon genome-wide association studies involving hundreds of thousands of individuals, suggest the two cardiovascular phenotypes play a role in AD risk - and perhaps offer a new avenue for potentially delaying disease progression.  The researchers used summary statistics from genome-wide association studies of more than 200,000 individuals, looking for overlap in…

Faster increases in life expectancy do not necessarily produce faster population aging, a counterintuitive finding that came as a result of applying new measures of aging developed at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in order to project future populations for Europe out to the year 2050. Traditional measures of age simply categorize people as "old" at a specific age, usually 65, but previous research by Scherbov, Sanderson, and colleagues has shown that the traditional definition puts many people in the category of "old" who have characteristics of much younger…

In the developed world, we are aging rapidly. People age 85 and older make up the fastest growing age group in the United States and in other countries that trend will also increase. Aging and aging well are not always the same thing, though, and issues like Alzheimer's are a concern. A new study of 256 people with an average age of 87 who were free of memory and thinking problems at the start of the study concluded that who participate in arts and craft activities and who socialize may delay the development in very old age of the thinking and memory problems that often lead to dementia.…

Osteoporosis is a medical condition characterized by bones becoming brittle and fragile. Age-related loss in muscle mass and strength is considered analogous to osteoporosis but this “sarcopenia” is not recognized as a clinical condition even though it is linked to impaired physical function and contribute to disability, falls, and hospitalizations. Lower muscle mass and strength are also associated with lower bone mineral density and greater risk for osteoporotic fractures. Why isn't sarcopenia more accepted? No valid diagnostic criteria whereas osteoporosis can be diagnosed based on…

When Jonas the fat-tailed dwarf lemur died recently in captivity at the ripe age of 29 years, he was the oldest known of his species. But Jonas not only outlasted members of closely related lemur species held in captivity; he also lived much longer than science would predict based on his small size. A new study in the Journal of Zoology attributed this exceptional longevity to the fact that this lemur species are able to readily enter a low energy state. They can do this for both for long periods of days to months (hibernation), as well as shorter periods of a few hours (known as torpor).…

NASA has sent an astronaut to the International Space Station to stay there for a year. Though Russian cosmonauts have achieved this feat before, the mission aims to help us to better understand how humans adapt to the spaceflight environment and the effects of countermeasures such as drugs and exercise that help them cope. Exposure to the low gravity associated with spaceflight is well established to cause deterioration of various bodily systems. Symptoms that astronauts consistently report when they return to Earth include loss of bone mass, fluid shifts towards the head, under-par heart…

As we age, our bodies biologically are going to perform less efficiently. There are no 60-year-old shortstops in major league baseball, we can injure more easily and our brains slow down as well. We often won't have the memory or cognitive processing ability we used to have, but that doesn't mean it is dementia. A new paper outlines a risk factor scoring system for dementia. The downside to risk factors is people really do not understand them, if Angelina Jolie continues to get genetic tests and then surgery as a result she may soon have no internal organs left, but properly used they can…

An examination of over 3,600 postmortem brains has concluded that the progression of dysfunctional tau protein drives the cognitive decline and memory loss seen in Alzheimer's disease. That means amyloid, the other toxic protein that characterizes Alzheimer's and builds up as dementia progresses is not the primary culprit. There has been an ongoing debate about the relative contributions of amyloid and tau to the development and progression of cognitive dysfunction in Alzheimer's but the findings suggest that halting toxic tau should be a new focus for Alzheimer's treatment, …

As medicine has improved, increasing our ability to treat disease, our longevity has improved as well. The deterioration of the body with age is a whole other matter, though. Apparently all that we might need is some “house-keeping” in the brain, according to a paper in PNAS by a team of Portuguese researchers. Researchers believe they might have also solved a 70-year old mystery: how calorie restriction (a diet with low calories without malnutrition) can delay aging and increase longevity in animals from dogs to mice. In their new study, Claudia Cavadas and her group from the Centre for…