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In a new study, scientists analyzed MRI data stored at the UK Biobank and identified seven genes responsible for fast biological brain aging and 13 existing drugs that can target those genes. Slowing the aging process is a powerful strategy to prevent many diseases and enhance longevity. A crucial parameter in brain health research is the brain age gap (BAG), which is the difference between a person's estimated biological brain age and their chronological age. The brain age gap is also a reliable biomarker (or proxy) for studying brain health. While the effects of the BAG are well explored, identifying...

In the Towers of Silence, an ancient ritual of death comes under threat By Peter Foster in New Delhi (Filed: 12/09/2006) The viability of the centuries-old Zoroastrian custom of allowing vultures to consume the corpses of its devotees has been called into question after a relative of one of the dead discovered piles of rotting bodies lying almost untouched by the birds. Dhun Baria, a member of Bombay's Zoroastrian community, known as Parsis, was shocked to be told that the body of her mother had lain untouched for nine months after she was laid to rest at the Towers of...

Once upon a time, the vulture was an abundant and ubiquitous bird in India. The scavenging birds hovered over sprawling landfills, looking for cattle carcasses. Sometimes they would alarm pilots by getting sucked into jet engines during airport take-offs. But more than two decades ago, India’s vultures began dying because of a drug used to treat sick cows. By the mid-1990s, the 50 million-strong vulture population had plummeted to near zero because of diclofenac, a cheap non-steroidal painkiller for cattle that is fatal to vultures. Birds that fed on carcasses of livestock treated with the drug suffered from kidney failure...

Safety concerns related to the widely used painkiller diclofenac may be tied to a little-studied drug-metabolizing enzyme whose expression can vary as much as 3,000 times from one individual to the next. Used to combat pain and inflammation associated with arthritis, diclofenac was an over-the-counter drug. The FDA restricted it to prescription-only use following reports of the drug causing heart damage. Previous findings by the WSU team had found a high degree of variability in the expression of UGT2B17, an enzyme that is a known player in diclofenac metabolism. That study showed that the enzyme is present at much lower...

Warnings about potential hepatotoxicity risks associated with use of diclofenac have been added to the labels of all products containing the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug, the Food and Drug Administration said. A notice posted on the FDA's MedWatch site said that the manufacturers—Endo Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Novartis Consumer Health Inc.—had revised the “hepatic effects” section of the diclofenac topical gel label to include new warnings and precautions about the potential for elevated liver function tests (LFTs) during treatment with diclofenac products, including the topical gel formulation marketed as Voltaren Gel 1%. There have been postmarketing reports of severe hepatic reactions, including...