Aging & Longevity News and Discussions

[raklian]

[caltrek]

Time Change for Biological Aging Clocks: How Immune Cells Shape Our Body's True Age
January 8, 2024

Introduction:

(Eurekalert) LEBANON, NH—When asked, “How old are you?” Most people measure by how many birthdays they’ve had. But scientists have developed epigenetic clocks to measure how 'old' your body really is. At the forefront of aging research, these clocks go beyond our calendar age to try and reveal our biological age—a true marker of how healthy we are. However, scientists don't fully understand how they work. As a recent NYT article pointed out, it's a bit like having a sophisticated gadget without a manual. Our bodies' internal workings, especially our immune system, play a huge role, but the details are still unclear.

New research by Dartmouth Cancer Center scientists has taken the first step to change that. The team, led by Ze Zhang, PhD, Lucas Salas, MD, MPH, PhD, and Brock Christensen, PhD, is diving deep into the immune system to learn how different immune cells affect epigenetic clocks* (see also definition of epigenetic below), to make them more accurate and reliable.

In their study, “Deciphering the role of immune cell composition in epigenetic age acceleration: Insights from cell-type deconvolution applied to human blood epigenetic clocks,” newly published in Aging Cell, the team determined how our body's biological age is related to our immune system. Using novel tools they recently developed for immune profiling, they were able to more closely examine how immune cell profiles relate with biological age estimates from epigenetic clocks. In particular, the balance between naïve and memory immune cells seems to accelerate or slow down biological aging. Key innovations of the study include:

• Enabling the calculation of Intrinsic Epigenetic Age Acceleration (IEAA) with unprecedented immune cell granularity, allowing for a much more detailed understanding of the aging process at a cellular level.

• Offering a more direct comparison between immune cells and aging than the traditional Extrinsic Epigenetic Age Acceleration (EEAA) method, which only considers a limited range of immune cells.

• Adding a new layer of understanding to the biological interpretation of epigenetic clocks, by mapping out how various immune cell subsets contribute to epigenetic aging and providing insights that previous research has missed.

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1030582

*caltrek’s comment: I had forgotten the definition of “epigenetics.” It is “the study of changes in gene activity that occur without altering the underlying DNA sequence. It's like a layer of instructions that sits on top of your genetic code and influence how genes are turned on or off.”

[raklian]

[caltrek]

Eating More of This Type of Protein Could Help You Age Better
Miriam Fauzia
January 17, 2024

Introduction:

(Inverse) We’ve got two weeks left of Veganuary — the month-long challenge to temporarily give up meat and meat products — and if you haven’t started yet, there’s no better time than the present. Your future self’s healthy body will most definitely thank you, or so says science.

According to a study published Wednesday in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, researchers at Tufts and Harvard University found eating a diet heavy on plant-based proteins and light on animal ones contributed to healthy aging, particularly among those assigned female at birth. This finding was based on data analyzed from the Nurses’ Health Study, a prospective cohort study of over 120,000 registered nurses whose lifestyle and health data were collected since 1976.

“Consuming protein in midlife was linked to promoting good health in older adulthood,” Andres Ardisson Korat, the study’s lead author and a research scientist at Tufts University’s Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging, said in a press release. “We also found that the source of protein matters. Getting the majority of your protein from plant sources at midlife, plus a small amount of animal protein, seems to be conducive to good health and good survival to older ages.”

MORE PLANTS EQUALS BETTER HEALTH

There’s been a lot of hype — not unwarranted — behind plant-based diets. Studies upon studies find that eating more fruits, veggies, whole grains, nuts, and seeds can slash one’s risk for and even reverse the damage wrought by chronic maladies like heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, obesity, and certain types of cancer.

The new study adds to this growing body of research but specifically investigates how dietary protein from plants may relate to healthy aging, which, as the researchers write in their paper, hasn’t been explored nearly as much.

Read more here: https://www.inverse.com/health/age-hea ... utrition

[wjfox]

At 93, he’s as fit as a 40-year-old. His body offers lessons on aging.

The human body maintains the ability to adapt to exercise at any age, showing that it’s never too late to start a fitness program

January 16, 2024 at 7:00 a.m. EST

For lessons on how to age well, we could do worse than turn to Richard Morgan.

At 93, the Irishman is a four-time world champion in indoor rowing, with the aerobic engine of a healthy 30- or 40-year-old and the body-fat percentage of a whippet. He’s also the subject of a new case study, published last month in the Journal of Applied Physiology, that looked at his training, diet and physiology.

Its results suggest that, in many ways, he’s an exemplar of fit, healthy aging — a nonagenarian with the heart, muscles and lungs of someone less than half his age. But in other ways, he’s ordinary: a onetime baker and battery maker with creaky knees who didn’t take up regular exercise until he was in his 70s and who still trains mostly in his backyard shed.

Even though his fitness routine began later in life, he has now rowed the equivalent of almost 10 times around the globe and has won four world championships. So what, the researchers wondered, did his late-life exercise do for his aging body?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness ... rd-morgan/



Credit: Row2k.com

[weatheriscool]

Reprogrammed T cells make mice (and maybe us) age slower
By Paul McClure
January 24, 2024

https://newatlas.com/medical/reprogramm ... s-in-mice/
Researchers have used reprogrammed CAR T cells, usually used as a cancer treatment, to target the senescent cells that contribute to aging and later-life diseases. After one treatment, old mice showed improved metabolism and exercise tolerance, while young ones aged slower and were protected from age-related diseases like obesity and diabetes for life.

T cells fulfill crucial roles in the body’s immune system. They can act as ‘killer’ cells, attacking cells infected with a virus or other pathogen, or as ‘helper’ cells, supporting B cells in producing antibodies. They can also be engineered to fight cancer. In CAR T-cell therapy, a patient’s own T cells are modified in the lab to produce surface proteins called chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) that recognize and bind to specific antigens on the surface of cancer cells, which they then destroy.

In a new study, researchers from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL), New York, discovered that these CAR T cells can be reprogrammed to target senescent cells, thought to be involved in aging and many of the diseases encountered in later life.

[raklian]

Read this thread by David Sinclair as he explains the implications from a different study.

[erowind]

Something I’ve thought about is that simply removing senescent cells won’t be enough. It will probably double or even triple our lifespans but eventually all the cells in our bodies will become dysfunctional and removal won’t work anymore. We have to actually rejuvenate cell division proper too. Does anyone know if there are any teams working on this?

[raklian]

Something I’ve thought about is that simply removing senescent cells won’t be enough. It will probably double or even triple our lifespans but eventually all the cells in our bodies will become dysfunctional and removal won’t work anymore. We have to actually rejuvenate cell division proper too. Does anyone know if there are any teams working on this?

Have you seen the living Rejuvenation Roadmap by Lifespan.io? The link is provided below. It gets regular updates regarding the status of the most promising rejuvenation therapies and technologies in development. As for your area of concern, I would look under the Stem Cell Exhaustion umbrella or "hallmark of aging," or perhaps Epigenetic Alteration, Telomere Attrition, or even Genomic Instability.

https://www.lifespan.io/road-maps/the-r ... n-roadmap/

[weatheriscool]

1,000 American dogs required for life extension drug trial
By Paul McClure
February 04, 2024

An 11-year-old Whippet called Boo is the first dog enrolled in a study to trial a drug designed to extend the healthy lifespan of senior dogs of almost all sizes. On the back of excitement generated by the drug’s predecessor, which was made for large-breed dogs, the researchers are calling on owners of older dogs across the US to enroll in the study.

Big dogs like Great Danes and Newfoundlands may only live seven to eight years, compared with the average lifespan of little ones like Chihuahuas and Miniature Poodles, who can live up to 20 years. Selectively breeding large- and giant-breed dogs has led to them having levels of IGF-1, a hormone that drives cell growth and is part of the longevity pathway in animals and humans, up to 28 times higher than that of small dogs. Administered by vets every three-to-six months, LOY-001 inhibits IGF-1 overexpression and extends a large dog’s healthy lifespan.

https://newatlas.com/pets/life-extendin ... ticipants/