Lifeboat Foundation

In a study of 17 people from five families, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers say they found that ultra-lengthy DNA endcaps called telomeres fail to provide the longevity presumed for such people. Instead, people with long telomeres tend to develop a range of benign and cancerous tumors, as well as the age-related blood condition clonal hematopoiesis.

Reporting in the May 4 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, the Johns Hopkins researchers say clonal hematopoiesis is common among this long-telomere group, and the blood condition combined with long telomeres may help mutations stick around longer in blood cells.

“Our findings challenge the idea that long telomeres protect against aging,” says Mary Armanios, M.D., professor of oncology at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, and professor of genetic medicine, molecular biology and genetics, and pathology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “Rather than long telomeres protecting against aging, long telomeres allowed cells with mutations that arise with aging to be more durable.”

Drug company Eli Lilly reports that donanemab can slow the pace of Alzheimer’s disease by 35%, following a Phase 3 study in human patients.

Brain scans of Alzheimer’s patients with treatment (A and B) and placebo ©, showing clearance of amyloid plaques. Credit: Eli Lilly.

In recent years, Alzheimer’s has become an increasingly major public health issue. The prevalence of this disease – a progressive neurological disorder that affects memory, thinking, and behaviour – is being driven by aging populations, changes in lifestyle factors, and improvements in diagnostic techniques.

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For Rance and others in the field, fezolinetant’s progress to this point is a sign that research into the causes and effects of menopausal symptoms is finally being taken seriously. In the next few years, the global number of postmenopausal women is expected to surpass one billion. But many women still struggle to access care related to menopause, and research into how best to manage such symptoms has lagged behind. That is slowly changing. Armed with improved animal models and a growing literature on the effects of existing treatments, more researchers are coming into the field to fill that gap.

They increasingly recognize that menopause and the transition to it, a phase labelled perimenopause, could set the stage for brain health in later life, and there are even hints that it could correlate with the risk of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease.

Fezolinetant and similar drugs in the pipeline also represent a shift in thinking: from menopause as a condition of the female reproductive organs, to one that focuses on neurological causes and effects. “We think of menopause as being driven by changes in the ovary,” says Hadine Joffe, who studies mental health and ageing in women at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts. “The notion of the brain at the helm of menopause, that is a different concept.”

Next week will see the first Sheba Longevity Conference, a meeting that will bring together all relevant stakeholders in the multidisciplinary field of longevity medicine, providing a forum for showcasing outstanding research and scientific breakthroughs. The conference will also include the opening ceremony of the public academic hospital longevity center at Sheba Hospital.

The conference aims to foster collaborations that will accelerate the translation of scientific discoveries into clinical practices and facilitate a shift in Israel’s national healthy longevity policy. The event will also include an exhibition space for sponsors, partners and industry representatives to promote dialogue and showcase their work.

Continue reading “New longevity conference will span research to evidence-based clinical practice” »

August will see the second annual Longevity Summit take place in Dublin. Packed with keynote presentations by leading experts in the aging field, the summit will showcase some of the latest – and most exciting – research and innovations in the longevity space.

Longevity. Technology: One of the Longevity Summit’s most-anticipated speakers is eminent gerontologist Dr Aubrey de Grey. Since the launch of the Longevity Escape Velocity Foundation, which Dr de Grey announced at Dublin last year, news on progress of its flagship research programme Robust Mouse Rejuvenation has been keenly awaited, as has further details on its research into transplants on demand.

Continue reading “Stay cool: the longevity tech that ‘shows insane promise’” »

Year 2014 face_with_colon_three Basically the whole bodies cells could be a pacemaker enabling even immortality with electricity at low voltage.

In pigs, scientists have succeeded in turning cardiac muscle cells into specialized pacemaker cells. Such technology could eventually replace electronic pacemakers, researchers say.

Continue reading “Reprogramming Cells for a Bio-Pacemaker” »

In a remote part of the Amazon, anthropologists and neuroscientists are learning about life and health without an “embarrassment of riches.”

A study has found that a mitochondrial disease in newborns shows cancer-like changes in proliferating cells, causing tissues to age prematurely. The finding is a significant step forward in understanding the syndrome and developing treatments for mitochondrial diseases.

GRACILE syndrome, a mitochondrial disease that is one of the Finnish heritage diseases, shows altered cell metabolism and proliferation resembling that of cancer cells. In the future, similar mitochondrial diseases could potentially be treated by limiting excessive cell proliferation. This is demonstrated in a study led by docent Jukka Kallijärvi and professor emerita Vineta Fellman that was carried out at the Folkhälsan Research Center and the University of Helsinki and published in Nature Communications in April 2023.

Mitochondria are organelles responsible for a large portion of cellular energy metabolism. Mutations in genes required for mitochondrial functions cause mitochondrial diseases in humans. GRACILE syndrome is caused by a malfunction in the respiratory chain, the very system the mitochondria utilize to generate cellular energy. The onset of the syndrome is in the fetal period, manifesting after birth as a liver and kidney disease with severe metabolic complications. Newborns with the syndrome usually only survive a few weeks.