Aging

It may feel like old age is slowing you down, but that is not the case for everyone. A new research program found that age is no obstacle to performing well. Even as well as elite cyclists. The Department of Biomedicine and the Center for Healthy Aging at the University of Copenhagen examined how seniors convert energy when exposed to maximal physical exertion. Six men, aged 46-71 years, cycled 2,700 km, from Copenhagen to the North Cape, in two weeks, and the researchers examined them along the way. The resulting study shows that the seniors expended 4.0 times the basal metabolism.…

A recent paper explores the evolution of disease classification practices and the progress made since William Cullen's seminal Nosolagae Methodicae synopsis published in 1769. The paper discusses some of the additions to the ICD-10 including some of the less obvious conditions like obesity that may set the precedent for classifying aging as a disease. That's right, aging. How can aging be a disease when it happens to everyone? It is like classifying blood circulation and brain waves as a disease, right? While there is clear disagreement among demographers, gerontologists and biogerontologists…

If you're feeling a little blue during the transition to menopause, there's good reason, according to a new study being reported online today in Menopause. The study suggests that the estradiol (a form of estrogen) fluctuation that is common during the menopausal transition may enhance emotional sensitivity to psychosocial stress. When combined with a very stressful life event, this sensitivity is likely to contribute to the development of a depressed mood.  It is generally accepted within the medical community that women are at greater risk to suffer from depression than men. Some…

Managing money can be difficult at any age but for older adults, changes in physical condition and life circumstances can lead to changes for the worse in financial behavior, putting their well-being in danger. Now those changes have been given a name: age-associated financial vulnerability.  The authors define the condition as "a pattern of financial behavior that places an older adult at substantial risk for a considerable loss of resources such that dramatic changes in quality of life would result." To be considered AAFV, this behavior also must be a marked change from the kind of…

It is generally recognized that our physical fitness and our mental fitness are linked, especially as we get older, but how does being physically fit affect our aging brains? Neuroimaging studies, in which the activity of different parts of the brain can be visualized, have led to hypotheses but no study has directly linked brain activation with both mental and physical performance. A new paper in NeuroImage, led by Dr. Hideaki Soya from the University of Tsukuba in Japan, sees a direct relationship between brain activity, brain function and physical fitness in a group of older Japanese men…

An analysis of MRI scans of the aging hearts of nearly 3,000 adults shows significant differences in the way male and female hearts change over time. In both sexes, the main heart chamber, the left ventricle -- which fills with and then forces out blood -- gets smaller with time. As a result, less blood enters the heart and less gets pumped out to the rest of the body. But in men, the study reveals, the heart muscle that encircles the chamber grows bigger and thicker with age, while in women, it get retains its size or gets somewhat smaller. A condition that affects more than five million…

One of every nine infants in the United States is born early and, thus, with increased risk of cognitive difficulties, problems with motor skills, and attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorders and anxiety. Babies born prematurely face an increased risk of neurological and psychiatric problems that may be due to weakened connections in brain networks linked to attention, communication and the processing of emotions, new research shows.  Studying brain scans from premature and full-term babies, researchers zeroed in on differences in the brain that may…

Dopamine deficiency in the basal ganglia (a set of subcortical structures) causes severe motor dysfunctions, such as slowness of movements (bradykinesia), as observed in Parkinson's disease. Dopamine binds D1 and D2 receptors that are expressed in the nerve cells of the striatum (a structure of the basal ganglia), and exerts different effects on the nerve cells. However, how dopamine controls through these receptors the information flow in the basal ganglia and voluntary movements is still not clear. Assistant Professor Satomi Chiken and Professor Atsushi Nambu from National Institute for…

Osteoporosis, a disease of progressive bone loss, affects 70 percent of the U.S. population older than age 50 - about 50 percent of women and 20 percent of men. These individuals are at risk for fragility fractures, a break that results from a fall, or occurs in the absence of obvious trauma, and most commonly seen in the wrist, the upper arm, the hip, and the spine.   People who sustain a fragility fracture are at a higher risk for future fractures and face increasing treatment costs. According to a new study, anti-osteoporotic therapy, a treatment intended to increase bone mineral…

An estimated seven to ten million people worldwide are living with Parkinson's disease (PD), which is an incurable and progressive disease of the nervous system affecting movement and cognitive function. More than half of PD patients develop progressive disease showing signs of dementia similar to Alzheimer's disease. A research team at University of Copenhagen, Denmark, has discovered that non-inheritable PD may be caused by functional changes in the immune regulating gene Interferon-beta (IFNβ). Treatment with IFNβ-gene therapy successfully prevented neuronal death and disease effects in…