Category Health/Medical

Research led by the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Aging in Cologne reports that misincorporation of ribonucleotides into mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) initiates an inflammatory cascade.

Mitochondria support cell survival through metabolic and signaling roles. Conversely, their disruption has been associated with inflammation, cell death and disease.

Innate immune activation through the cGAS-STING-TBK1 pathway can move a cell from short-term defense to a chronic state of alarm. cGAS-STING activity is linked to autoimmune and inflammatory diseases and contributes to senescence and aging, intertwining immune signaling with tissue decline.

Senescent cells then adopt a secretor...

People who sleep poorly are more likely than others to have brains that appear older than they actually are. This is according to a comprehensive brain imaging study from Karolinska Institutet, published in the journal eBioMedicine. The paper is titled “Poor sleep health is associated with older brain age: the role of systemic inflammation.”

Increased inflammation in the body may partly explain the association.

Poor sleep has been linked to dementia, but it is unclear whether unhealthy sleep habits contribute to the development of dementia or whether they are rather early symptoms of the disease.

In a new study, researchers at Karolinska Institutet have investigated the link between sleep characteristics and how old the brain appears in relat...

A new Cochrane review demonstrates that vaccines for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) are both safe and effective in protecting vulnerable groups that are most at risk of serious illness, including older adults and infants.

RSV is a common virus that causes coughs and colds but can also lead to life-threatening lung infections like pneumonia. Children under the age of two are at the highest risk of severe RSV infection and death, with older adults also vulnerable.

An international group of researchers analyzed 14 clinical trials with over 100,000 participants, including older adults, pregnant women, women of childbearing age, and children...

Researchers at the Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute (Stevens INI) at the Keck School of Medicine of USC have developed a brain imaging technique that reveals how tiny blood vessels in the brain pulse with each heartbeat—changes that may hold clues to aging and diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

The study, published in Nature Cardiovascular Research, introduces the first noninvasive method for measuring “microvascular volumetric pulsatility”—the rhythmic expansion and contraction of the brain’s smallest vessels—in living humans.

Using ultra-high-f...