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Category: life extension – Page 8

New Breakthrough to Restore Aging Joints Could Help Treat Osteoarthritis

A study in mice by researchers from Stanford University has traced the loss of cartilage that comes with aging to a single protein, pointing to treatments that may one day restore mobility and ease discomfort in seniors.

The protein 15-PGDH has previously been extensively linked to aging: it becomes more abundant as we get older, and interferes with the molecules that repair tissue and reduce inflammation.

That led scientists to consider whether 15-PGDH might be involved in osteoarthritis, where stress on joints leads to the breakdown of collagen in cartilage, causing inflammation and pain.

Discrimination of normal from slow-aging mice by plasma metabolomic and proteomic features

Tests that can predict whether a drug is likely to extend mouse lifespan could speed up the search for anti-aging drugs. We have applied a machine learning algorithm, XGBoost regression, to seek sets of plasma metabolites (n = 12,000) and peptides (n = 17,000) that can discriminate control mice from mice treated with one of five anti-aging interventions (n = 278 mice). When the model is trained on any four of these five interventions, it predicts significantly higher lifespan extension in mice exposed to the intervention which was not included in the training set. Plasma peptide data sets also succeed at this task. Models trained on drug-treated normal mice also discriminate long-lived mutant mice from their respective controls, and models trained on males can discriminate drug-treated from control females.

Enhanced non-enzymatic H2S generation extends lifespan and healthspan in male mice

Cáliz-Molina et al. demonstrate that hydrogen sulfide generators found in garlic extend lifespan and enhance metabolic, neurocognitive, and locomotor function in male mice. These molecules induce hepatic lipid-droplet remodeling and modulate aging-associated pathways at transcriptomic, proteomic, and persulfidomic levels. In humans, increased cysteine persulfidation correlates with relevant aspects of health.

Heart-brain connection via vagus nerve to keep the heart young

The secret to a healthier and “younger” heart lies in the vagus nerve. A recent study published in Science Translational Medicine has shown that preserving bilateral cardiac vagal innervation is an anti-aging factor. In particular, the right cardiac vagus nerve emerges as a true guardian of cardiomyocyte health, helping to preserve the longevity of the heart independently of heart rate.

‘When the integrity of the connection to the vagus nerve is lost, the heart ages more rapidly,’ explains the senior author.

‘Even partial restoration of the connection between the right vagus nerve and the heart is sufficient to counteract the mechanisms of remodelling and preserve effective cardiac contractility,’ adds another author.

‘We have developed an implantable bioabsorbable nerve conduit designed to promote and guide the spontaneous regeneration of the thoracic vagus nerve at the cardiac level,’ explains a co-author.

Treated adult male minipigs displayed improved global circumferential, longitudinal, and radial strains and reduced diastolic dyssynchrony. Histological analysis revealed partial repair with about 20% viable vagal fascicles, restoration of myocardial parasympathetic fibers, normalization of oxidative stress and aging markers, and prevention of interstitial fibrosis.

Longitudinal Profiling of DNA Methylation Reveals Age‐Varying CpG Sites and Novel Insights Into Aging Heterogeneity

We longitudinally profiled DNA methylation in 135 relatively healthy older adults from the RLAS study, identifying 3145 CpG sites exhibiting increasing inter-individual variability with age and 125,3…

Mathematics uncovers shifting brain connectivity in autism and aging

It is a central question in neuroscience to understand how different regions of the brain interact, how strongly they “talk” to each other. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences Leipzig, Germany, the Institute of Mathematical Sciences in Chennai, India, and colleagues demonstrate how mathematical techniques from topological data analysis (TDA) can provide a new, multiscale perspective on brain connectivity. The study was published in the journal Patterns.

With the rise of large neuroimaging datasets, scientists now work with detailed maps of brain connectivity—network representations that show how hundreds of brain regions fluctuate and coordinate their activity over time. But making sense of these enormous networks poses a challenge: What patterns matter? Which changes signal healthy aging, and which reflect differences associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD)?

The study introduces a mathematical innovation that helps answer precisely these questions. Researchers applied persistent homology, a tool from topological data analysis (TDA), to detect how brain connectivity reorganizes during healthy aging and in ASD.

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