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As the UN commemorates World Day of Social Justice on February 20, we’re taking a look at one of the key challenges the world is facing in the coming decades: the gradual and largely irreversible shift towards an older population. According to the United Nations Population Division, the number of persons aged 65 and older is expected to double over the next three decades, reaching 1.6 billion in 2050. As the following chart shows, Asia is at the forefront of this trend, with Hong Kong, South Korea and Japan expected to have the highest share of people aged 65 and...

A randomized, double blind human clinical trial reveals that supplementation with GlyNAC—a combination of glycine and N-acetylcysteine—improves many age-associated defects in older humans and powerfully promotes healthy aging. This is relevant because until now, there have been no solutions toward improving many of these age-related declines in people. The study shows that older humans taking GlyNAC for 16-weeks improved many characteristic defects of aging. This includes oxidative stress, glutathione deficiency and multiple aging hallmarks affecting mitochondrial dysfunction, mitophagy, inflammation, insulin resistance, endothelial dysfunction, genomic damage, stem cell fatigue and cellular senescence. These were associated with improvements in muscle strength, gait...

Destroying senescent cells in the aging stem cell niche enhances hippocampal neurogenesis and cognitive function in mice, researchers report. "Our results provide further support for the notion that excessive senescence is a driving factor behind aging, and even late-life reduction of these cells can rejuvenate and restore the function of the stem cell niche," says senior author David Kaplan. "Moreover, they identify stem cells as a key cellular target, potentially explaining the widespread effects of senescent cells on tissue decline." Senescent cells, which are permanently arrested because of chronic stress, are partly responsible for tissue decline during aging. "Stem cells...

An oral supplement intended to stimulate a natural body process appears to promote muscle endurance and mitochondrial health in humans. New research suggests that the supplement, urolithin A, may help improve or prolong muscle activity in people who are aging or who have diseases that make exercise difficult. Urolithin A is a byproduct of a person's gut bacteria and a diet comprising polyphenols found in pomegranates, berries and nuts. The compound also is produced and sold by dietary supplement companies. Supplemental urolithin A has been shown in animal tests and molecular studies of humans to stimulate mitophagy, a process that...

Too big a price to pay for decelerating your epigenetic clock?If you're a gentleman looking to counteract the effects of ageing, a new study on sheep may have the answer – but you're going to have to say goodbye to your family jewels in return for a slowdown of your DNA's ageing process."Both farmers and scientists have known for some time that castrated male sheep live on average much longer than their intact counterparts," explained first author Victoria Sugrue, an anatomy PhD student at the University of Otago. "However, this is the first time anyone has looked at DNA to...

An international team of researchers has developed a new way to track the biological ageing process – and the results suggest that humans can live to a maximum of 150 years old. Why do we age?Ageing is a gradual process that happens over our whole life, as our normal body functions slow down. There are at least nine markers of ageing, but a common one is when our cells slowly lose the ability to produce new and healthy cells to repair damage. It is marked by a decline in physical functionality and an increased risk of chronic disease. Researchers distinguish...

Melatonin, a dietary supplement often used by insomnia sufferers, could be used to possibly help prevent or treat COVID-19, according to researchers at the Cleveland Clinic. The hormone — which regulates the sleep-wake cycle — was associated with an almost 30 percent reduced likelihood of contracting the disease, the scientists said in research published in the journal PLOS Biology, KIRO 7 reported. Additional studies are required about the over-the-counter supplement, the researchers said. “It is very important to note these findings do not suggest people should start to take melatonin without consulting their physician,” lead researcher Feixiong Cheng of the...

The Bordeaux wines will be stored on the ISS at 18 degrees Celsius for one year before being returned to earth and compared to a control sample that has been kept at the same temperature, NASA said in an explainer article. The name of the Château involved has not been released. It’s not the first time that wine has been sent to space. Château Lynch-Bages saw its 1975 vintage launched into space aboard NASA’s Discovery shuttle in 1985, returning to earth in 2015. The Bordeaux wines will be stored in a ‘Complex Microbiological System’ – or CommuBioS – according to...

“They killed him,” Marvin Siegel’s daughter Lisa Siegel Belanger wrote in a text. She followed up to explain that six years of round-the-clock captivity in his own home and in various medical facilities, together with forced drugging and morphine, lack of proper care and the ability for his family to interact with him and help with decisions, accelerated her father’s death. As we previously reported in this paper through a multi-part series of articles, including a personal account by Lisa, six years ago her father was taken from his Boxford, Mass. home via ambulance at the direction of a visiting...

With its pudgy body, tired eyes and hair loss, the lower mouse could easily be the father of the sprightly and alert animal nestling alongside. But they are actually the same age, the result of extraordinary trials of drugs which are slowing down or even reversing the ageing process. Scientists now believe that ageing itself is responsible for many major conditions such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, arthritis, cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. And they think they have found a way to turn it off. Anti-ageing drugs - dubbed ‘senolytics’ - are currently being trialled in humans and unlike previous tests which...

WASHINGTON, DC – You might recall the films, The Invisible Man, starring Claude Rains, and The Invisible Woman, starring Virginia Bruce. These works of fiction entertained audiences in the 1940s. But, it’s the 21st Century and it turns out invisible people really exist. “They live among us in the guise of senior citizens,” according to Dan Weber, president of AMAC, a powerful senior advocacy organization. San Francisco-based psychologist and psychotherapist Tamara McClintock Greenberg put it this way in an article for Psychology Today: “Why people are increasingly treated as if they’re invisible as they age (more prevalent it seems, for...

Time Gets Better With Age Read it through to the end, it gets better as you go! I've learned that I like my teacher because she cries when we sing "Silent Night." Age 5 I've learned that our dog doesn't want to eat my broccoli either. Age 7 I've learned that when I wave to people in the country, they stop what they are doing and wave back. Age 9 I've learned that just when I get my room the way I like it, Mom makes me clean it up again. Age 12 I've learned that if you want to...

THE brain cells that control ageing have been discovered offering the hope of people living longer Scientists have found that stem cells in the brain's hypothalamus govern how fast ageing occurs in the body. The discovery, made in mice, could lead to new strategies for warding off age-related diseases and extending lifespan, they claim. The hypothalamus was known to regulate important processes including growth, development, reproduction and metabolism. In 2013, researchers made the surprising finding that it also regulates ageing throughout the body. Now, the same scientists have now pinpointed a tiny population of adult neural stem cells, known to...

Scientists have made a discovery that could lead to a revolutionary drug that actually reverses ageing. The drug could help damaged DNA to miraculously repair and even protect Nasa astronauts on Mars by protecting them from solar radiation. A team of researchers developed the drug after discovering a key signalling process in DNA repair and cell ageing. During trials on mice, the team found that the drug directly repaired DNA damage caused by radiation exposure or old age. 'The cells of the old mice were indistinguishable from the young mice after just one week of treatment,' said lead author Professor...

Tokyo (AFP) - Every day is the same. He wakes at 6:45 am, eats breakfast 20 minutes later and reports for work at eight o'clock sharp. But this isn't your typical Japanese salaryman. This man is in his 80s and he is in prison -- a cage of structure and certainty that he is hesitant to ever leave. "I don't know what kind of life I should lead after I get out. I'll be worried about my health and financial situation once I leave," the inmate told AFP on condition of anonymity from Tokyo's Fuchu Prison, where he is serving...

On the Paradoxical Beauty of Dying Msgr. Charles Pope • November 6, 2016 • As most of you know, the Washington, D.C. City Council recently took a step toward legalizing physician-assisted suicide for those with less than six months to live.Although I have written elsewhere about the dangerous implications of this legislation, in today’s post I want to stand up for the dying, at home and in nursing homes, the fully lucid and those with advanced Alzheimer’s, those who are moving toward death relatively painlessly and those who are suffering.As a priest, it has been my privilege to accompany...

October 25, 2016 A simple Google search for "what does vitamin D do?" highlights the widely used dietary supplement's role in regulating calcium absorption and promoting bone growth. But now it appears that vitamin D has much wider effects—at least in the nematode worm, C. elegans. Research at the Buck Institute shows that vitamin D works through genes known to influence longevity and impacts processes associated with many human age-related diseases. The study, published in Cell Reports, may explain why vitamin D deficiency has been linked to breast, colon and prostate cancer, as well as obesity, heart disease and depression....

Scientists on Monday revealed part of the secret to why a small village in southern Italy has an unusual number of centenarians - low levels of a particular hormone that affects circulation. Italian and US experts have spent the last six months investigating the extraordinary longevity of residents of Acciaroli, where more than one in 10 - 81 at the mayor's last count - of the village's population of 700 is over 100 years old.

It’d be easy to miss the unobtrusive brown door to Joon Yun’s second floor office, tucked away next to a dry cleaners and a hair salon in downtown Palo Alto, California. But the address itself speaks loud enough. Four-hundred-seventy University Avenue is located in the heart of a neighborhood that holds a special place in the lore of Silicon Valley start-up culture. A few minutes’ walk away are the early homes of PayPal, Facebook, and Google. Yet the early ambitions of these famous companies are modest when compared to the ideas I’ve come to discuss with Yun. I’ve been led...

Studies of gut bacteria are beginning to untangle how diet affects health in old age — but determining cause and effect is tricky. Almost everything about eating gets more difficult with age. Elderly people typically cannot taste or smell as well as they used to, decreasing the appeal of some foods. Dental issues or a dry mouth can impede chewing; loss of muscle tone in the pharynx can make swallowing difficult; constipation and the side effects of medication can make digestion uncomfortable; and decreased mobility makes a chore of grocery shopping or cooking complex meals. Little wonder that older people...