Aging

A new study offers insights about the interaction between a toxic protein called progerin and telomeres, which cap the ends of chromosomes like aglets, the plastic tips that bind the ends of shoelaces.    Telomeres wear away during cell division. When they degrade sufficiently, the cell stops dividing and dies. The researchers have found that short or dysfunctional telomeres activate production of progerin, which is associated with age-related cell damage. As the telomeres shorten, the cell produces more progerin. Progerin is a mutated version of a normal cellular protein called…

Okay, it's not really fair to call it a scam, but I just couldn't resist the alliteration. Here's what they say: Squid skin is normally thrown away, but the Fisheries Research Institute [of Taiwan] announced recently that it has found a way to use it to produce functional peptides that can be sold as health care products or supplements . . . [The peptides] showed positive effects in slowing down the aging process and easing blood pressure . . . the peptides had not only proved safe but also activated neuron cells to help improve learning and reduce memory loss associated with aging. Well,…

A gene in the nucleus of muscle and brain cells named  MLIP (Muscle enriched A-type Lamin Interacting Protein) affects heart development and the aging process, according to a study in the Journal of Biological Chemistry . Mutations in the Lamin gene family are associated with muscular dystrophy and other degenerative heart muscle diseases.     The researchers, from the University of Ottawa Heart Institute (UOHI),  focus on the fetal heart as it grows into an adult heart and discovered the gene in the cell's nucleus, the site where hereditary information or DNA is housed…

CLEVELAND, April 27, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Simbionix USA Corporation has announced its new training simulator for pelvic floor repair, to be exposed for the first time at the ACOG 59th Annual Clinical Meeting in Washington, DC, April 30- May 4, 2011.   The Pelvic Mentor(TM) is an integrated hybrid system, combining a plastic mannequin with a computerized 3D virtual system. The simulator is intended to prepare gynecologists and urogynecologists for pelvic floor reconstruction with an emphasis on transvaginal mesh procedures. Pelvic organ prolapse is a common group of clinical…

“You have to bump the cage harder. Like this.” Marta Santos took the plastic cage from my hands and smacked it with the palm of her hand, causing a few lifeless bodies to fall off the walls of the cube and collect on the floor. It was like kicking a vending machine so that the Snickers bar would drop into the compartment below. I took the cage back and, following suit, smacked it a few times, then watched the living fruit flies, or Drosophila melanogaster, whiz frantically around the confines of their plastic home, disturbed. I used a paintbrush to collect the dead and place them into a…

Up to 12 percent of Americans may get Alzheimer's disease, current statistics say.  In the quest to prevent Alzheimer's, or at least make it manageable like diabetes, a group of researchers are working on a nasally-delivered vaccine that promises to protect against Alzheimer's.  Bonus: It may help prevent strokes also. The new vaccine repairs vascular damage in the brain by using the body's own immune system and, in addition to its prophylactic effect, it can work even when Alzheimer's symptoms are already present, according to the paper in Neurobiology of Aging. "Using part of a…

VIENNA, February 24, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Who hasn't seen those elderly Hollywood divas with doll-like faces overtightened by facelifts performed with scalpels? Modern stem cell technology is putting an end to that! Stem cell facelifts enable remarkable facial rejuvenation and toning with no scars. Henceforth nobody will ever know that actresses took this royal road to facial rejuvenation. "Stem cell-assisted facelifts fulfill the wish of many men and women for gentle, subtle procedures with natural results," says DDr. Karl-Georg Heinrich, Viennese expert in New Cosmetic Surgery and anti-…

Patients with Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome age eight to 10 times faster than the rest of us and rarely live beyond 13 years. Almost all of the patients die from complications of arteriosclerosis, the clogging or hardening of arteries or blood vessels caused by plaques, which leads to heart attack and stroke. Research on Progeria is difficult because the disease is exceedingly rare and only 64 children living with progeria are known, making access to patients very difficult. Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome is caused by a single point mutation in the gene encoding lamin A, which…

When you were young you may have heard something about a dog like, "Fido is 10 years old, that is 70 in people years" and wondered what that meant. It's a rule of thumb but there is a science basis to it, yet current methods of comparing patterns of aging are limited because they confound two different elements of aging – pace and shape.   And it can be confusing for non-biologists. The 'shape' of aging describes how much mortality, the risk of dying, changes with age. One way of measuring the shape of aging is the 'aging factor' across species.    For example, the common swift…

While the average lifespan of those who reach adulthood has continued to rise those years spent living without health issues have not kept pace. From 1970 to 2005, the probability of a 65-year-old surviving to age 85 doubled, from about a 20 percent chance to a 40 percent chance and the presumption was that the same changes allowing people to live longer, including medical advances, would delay the onset of disease and allow people to spend fewer years of their lives with debilitating illness. Instead, a 20-year-old today can expect to live one less healthy year over his or her life span than…