Simple Prebiotic Supplementation Improves Cognition in Older Individuals
Researchers here report that a small trial in humans showed that modulation of the aged gut microbiome via dietary supplementation with a prebiotic produced modest benefits to cognitive function. It is interesting that a prebiotic strategy, generally a weak form of intervention characterized by short duration of effect and small effect size, managed this outcome. There was no improvement in physical performance in the study group, only cognitive function. One might contrast this with what is known of the effects of fecal microbiota transplant from a young individual or flagellin immunization on the gut microbiome, meaning ...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 12, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Towards Better Bioprinted Skin, Created and Applied During Surgery
Skin is a complex organ of many distinct layers, in which different cell types and structures interact to maintain function and ability to regenerate. Creating a skin-like structure is one thing, but introducing sweat glands, hair follicles, and other complex features is quite another. Still, the accessibility of skin and the frequency of serious injuries that remove large sections of skin makes the skin a good testbed for the development of improved bioprinting techniques that are capable of inserting complex small-scale structures, manufacturing the different layers of skin, and that can be used in situ, directly printin...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 12, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Optimism on the Timeline for Extending Human Lifespans by 20 Years or More
In the interview noted here, Aubrey de Grey of the Longevity Escape Velocity (LEV) Foundation makes a bold prediction of 12-15 years as to when we might see the advent of the first therapies capable of extending the healthy human life span by a few decades, allowing older people to live long enough to benefit from following improvements to further extend their healthy life spans. It is worth bearing in mind that the creation of novel therapies doesn't mean widespread use or even easy availability of those therapies. Further, it is unlikely that we'll know the effects on human life span of any given combination of novel rej...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 11, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Healthy Life Extension Community Source Type: blogs
Quiz: Do You Know Your Immune System?
This post is part of a miniseries on the immune system. Be sure to check out the other posts in this series that you may have missed.
Credit: NIGMS.
Throughout our immunology miniseries, we introduced the immune system and its many functions and components. Additionally, we highlighted how vaccines train your immune system, how the system can go awry, and how NIGMS-supported researchers are studying immunology and infectious diseases. Put your knowledge about the immune system to the test by taking the quiz below.
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Learn more in our Educator’s Corner.
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Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - March 11, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Being a Scientist Cells Injury and Illness STEM Education Common questions Immunology Miniseries Infectious Diseases Medicines Microbes Quiz Source Type: blogs
Bemoaning the Lack of Standardization in Animal Studies of Aging
It is fair to say that the diversity of academia brings downsides in addition to upsides. A monolithic culture tends to mean slow progress: too little is explored at the borders of what is known when one viewpoint prevails at the expense of all others. A diverse culture produces such a variety of standards that it becomes challenging to compare any two studies. The paper-length complaint here is outlines the problems facing any scientist who is engaged in an analysis of published animal study data on the topic of intervening to slow or reverse aging, with a particular focus on the harms produced by a diversity of strategie...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 11, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
The Correlation Between Education and Life Expectancy
It is comparatively easy to find correlations in human epidemiological data, but much harder to determine causation. A web of correlations exist between socioeconomic status, education, intelligence, and life expectancy. We can even draw in environmental factors such as degree of exposure to particulate air pollution, which tends to correlate with the wealth of individuals living in a given area. In the matter of education, the effect size is small but the correlation is robust in large data sets. Why this is the case remains a topic for discussion.
To measure the pace of aging, the researchers applied an algorith...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 11, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, March 11th 2024
In conclusion, this Mendelian randomization study found that Streptococcus was causally associated with Bioage acceleration. Further randomized controlled trials are needed to investigate its role in the aging process.
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Considering the Mechanisms of Vascular Calcification
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2024/03/considering-the-mechanisms-of-vascular-calcification/
Harmful calcification of structures in the cardiovascular system proceeds alongside the development of the fatty lesions of atherosclerosis. Both disease processes are accelerated by chronic inflammation, but d...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 10, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Request for Startups in the Rejuvenation Biotechnology Space, 2024 Edition
Investors focused on funding biotechnology startups tend to exhibit herd behavior, much like investors everywhere these days. Funding is primarily deployed towards fads and popular trends, not necessarily towards what makes the most sense, even if sometimes the sensible manages to align with the popular. These days that means drug discovery platforms with a strong computational component and partial epigenetic reprogramming. But even in this environment, the path to true success is to work on important projects that few other people are touching. Be the champion for a potential solution to a tough, high-value, comparativel...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 8, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Investment Source Type: blogs
An Example of the Decomposition of Signatures of Aging into Multiple Distinct Trends
Gero is one of a number of longevity industry biotech companies that put a strong focus on computational analysis of data to steer small molecule drug development and repurposing efforts. One of the interesting themes in their papers and presentations is the decomposition of signatures of aging into different distinct components, both in mice and in humans. When one can identify different overlapping trends in age-related changes in omics data, there is something to be said in that about the way in which aging progresses. The usual challenges apply, however, in that it is difficult to take this sort of analysis and link it...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 8, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
A Way in Which Mitochondrial DNA Becomes Misplaced, Provoking Inflammation
Cells respond to the presence of DNA in the cytoplasm with inflammatory signaling, an evolved innate immune response that serves to protect against viral and bacterial infection. This becomes a problem when mitochondria become dysfunctional, as mitochondria contain their own small genome, the mitochondrial DNA. In the context of age-related mitochondrial dysfunction, and a number of other circumstances, fragments of mitochondrial DNA can find their way into the cell cytoplasm. The result is a link between mitochondrial dysfunction and the chronic inflammation of aging, though it remains unclear as to how much of this chara...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 8, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Arguing for Low Glutathione Levels to be Important in the Development of Parkinson's Disease
Glutathione is one of the more important cellular antioxidants. Delivery of glutathione via a range of mechanisms has been tested as a way to improve function in older individuals, with intriguing results in small clinical trials. The benefits include improved mitochondrial function and reduced inflammation. Delivery of antioxidants to mitochondria, where they can suppress the production of reactive oxygen species that takes place as a side-effect of the normal operation of these organelles, has been demonstrated to improve health and modestly slow aging in animal models. Unfortunately glutathione isn't orally bioavailable...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 7, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Continuing the Debate Over Why Time Spent Sitting Correlates with Mortality
We examined the prospective associations of convolutional neural network hip accelerometer posture-classified total sitting time and mean sitting bout duration with all-cause and cardiovascular disease (CVD) death.
Women (n=5,856; 79±7 years old) in the Women's Health Initiative Objective Physical Activity and Cardiovascular Health (OPACH) Study wore the ActiGraph GT3X+ for ~7 days from May 2012 to April 2014 and were followed through February 19, 2022 for all-cause and CVD death. The convolutional neural network hip accelerometer posture algorithm classified total sitting time and mean sitting bout duration fr...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 7, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Investigating the Role of S6K in the Slowed Aging Produced by Rapamycin
Decreased S6K expression is one of the downstream consequences of treatment with the mTOR inhibitor rapamycin, and is essential for mTOR inhibition to extend life in mice and other laboratory species. It is thought that the slowing of aging resulting from mTOR inhibition largely works via improved operation of the complex cell maintenance processes of autophagy, wherein damaged proteins are flagged, wrapped in membranes, and conveyed to a lysosome for recycling. Researchers here investigate the role of S6K, and note that it appears to reduce the excessive inflammatory signaling characteristic of old age in addition to impr...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 7, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Heat Stress Produces Lasting Cellular Resilience via Formation of Tetraspanin Webs
In this study, we use a robust thermal stress paradigm in C. elegans to uncover causal mechanisms by which transient stress may exert lasting impacts on organismal resilience and longevity. We show that transient heat exposure at 28°C during late larval development activates the gene tsp-1, which encodes a C. elegans homolog of the evolutionarily conserved tetraspanin protein family. Tetraspanin 1 (TSP-1) proteins form tetraspanin web-like structures and are essential for maintaining membrane permeability, barrier functions, and heat-induced organismal resilience and longevity. Initial induction of tsp-1 by heat requires ...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 6, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Research Organism Superheroes: Axolotls
The friendly-looking axolotl (Ambystoma mexicanum) doesn’t seem to have much in common with its namesake, Xolotl—the Aztec god of lightning, death, and fire. In fact, axolotls can regrow lost limbs and other body parts like organs and parts of their central nervous systems—which goes against the concept of death!
The axolotl can regenerate almost any body part, including brain, heart, jaws, limbs, lungs, ovaries, spinal cord, skin, and tail. This ability makes it an excellent research organism to study in the search for regenerative medicine. Credit: Marko Pende, MDI Biological Laboratory; MDI Biological Labor...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - March 6, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: STEM Education Tools and Techniques Coloring Pages Cool Creatures Regeneration Research Organisms Source Type: blogs
