Aging

An international research team has gathered a database of the oldest people in the world - those who lived beyond their 110th birthday, and while searching for these 'supercentenarians' and trying to find accurate documentation of their age, they also documented the personal histories and wisdom of those who long-lived folks. The result; a book called "Supercentenarians" and  coordinated by the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) in Rostock/Germany. How long can humans live?  Some age researchers say the question is obsolete, with no upper limit to life expectancy…

Don’t Shoot The Pied Piper Of Longevity Science  by Bill Sardi Greg Critser, a marvelous crafter of words and noted science writer, in his “Resveratrol: The Backlash” article at the Scientific Blogging site, writes not about science per se, but about one of its very public failings, as well as schadenfreude (German, from Schaden damage + Freude joy), the malicious enjoyment derived from observing someone else's misfortune.  In this instance, the seeming fall from grace of one of science's news media darlings, Harvard genetics and longevity professor David…

University of Birmingham scientists have discovered that the gene DAF-16 plays an important part in determining the rate of aging and average lifespan of the laboratory worm Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) and its close evolutionary cousins. DAF-16 is found in many other animals, including humans, and it is possible that this knowledge could open up new avenues for altering ageing, immunity and resistance to stresses in humans. The research was published this week in PLoS One Researchers compared longevity, stress resistance and immunity in four related species of worm. They also looked…

Eternity Soup, by Greg Critser Harmony Books, 2010 Scientific Blogging's own Greg Critser has tackled the science and business of eternal youth in his latest book. It's an engaging and excellent read. Critser is a fine storyteller, mixing his discussion of science with the lively personalities of the people involved. The book covers the latest science behind aging, the people who have shaped their lifestyles around that science, and the businesses that are trying to capitalize prematurely on the science. As I read it, there are two big lessons to be drawn from the story Greg tells: 1) People…

Greg Critser started blogging here within a month after we opened the doors.  How did he hear of us?   I have no idea and neither does he but shortly after we started we were referenced by lots of well-known writers like Andrew Sullivan and Greg and many others.    Originally he was 'testing out' material for a book on the mouse industry and laboratory testing.   A lot of mice were killed every year doing all manner of tests and it was interesting to him but a few months in he wrote The Rise Of The Methuselah Mouse, about mouse studies and anti-aging.   And that…

Congratulations to Scientific Blogging's own Greg Critser, whose latest book, Eternity Soup is reviewed in Nature: Critser's book is a brilliant exposé of the increasingly popular anti-ageing industry and how its practitioners have misled many people into believing that they can stop or reverse the effects of ageing. Proponents seem to argue: ageing is your fault; we have an unproven cure for sale that no one has disproved; scientists and physicians who disagree with us operate in a failed paradigm; and our patients tell us they feel better, therefore our treatments work. I haven't quite…

People in developed nations are living as much as a decade longer than their parents did as a result of staying healthy to a more advanced age, according to a new review published in Nature. The better health in older age stems from public health efforts to improve living conditions and prevent disease, and from improved medical interventions, said author James Vaupel, who heads Duke University's Center on the Demography of Aging. Over the past 170 years, in the countries with the highest life expectancies, the average life span has grown at a rate of 2.5 years per decade, or about 6 hours…

People who stay mentally sharp into their 80s and beyond challenge the notion that brain changes linked to mental decline and Alzheimer's disease are a normal, inevitable part of aging, say scientists presenting at the ACS National Meeting. The researchers say that elderly people with super-sharp memory — so-called "super-aged" individuals — somehow escaped formation of brain "tangles." The tangles consist of an abnormal form of a protein called "tau" that damages and eventually kills nerve cells. Named for their snarled, knotted appearance under a microscope, tangles increase with advancing…

Green jobs—great. But gray jobs, maybe an even better bet. If there is a single graphic that everyone concerned with the nation’s future should have tattooed on their eyeballs, my vote goes to this one: Here is its central message: Forty years from now, one out of four Americans will be 65 or older. Twenty million will be over 85. One million will be over 100. So far the Big Think on such numbers might be boiled down to a few reasonable conclusions: People will have to work longer and delay retirement. The government should underwrite serial job retraining and promote new kinds of annuity…

Research conducted at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine suggests that "exergames" – entertaining video games that combine game play with exercise can improve the symptoms of subsyndromal depression (SSD) in seniors. In a pilot study, researchers found that use of exergames significantly improved mood and mental health-related quality of life in older adults with SSD. The study appears in the March issue of the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry. In the study, 19 participants with SSD ranging in age from 63 to 94 played an exergame on the Nintendo Wii video game…