lifespan tagged posts

In recent years, research has begun to reveal that the lines of communication between the body’s organs are key regulators of aging. When these lines are open, the body’s organs and systems work well together. But with age, communication lines deteriorate, and organs don’t get the molecular and electrical messages they need to function properly.

A new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis identifies, in mice, a critical communication pathway connecting the brain and the body’s fat tissue in a feedback loop that appears central to energy production throughout the body. The research suggests that the gradual deterioration of this feedback loop contributes to the increasing health problems that are typical of natural aging.

The study—published in the jour...

Human lifespan is related to the aging of our individual cells. Three years ago a group of University of California San Diego researchers deciphered essential mechanisms behind the aging process. After identifying two distinct directions that cells follow during aging, the researchers genetically manipulated these processes to extend the lifespan of cells.

As described in a new article published April 27, 2023, in Science, the team has now extended this research using synthetic biology to engineer a solution that keeps cells from reaching their normal levels of deterioration associated with aging.

Cells, including those of yeast, plants, animals and humans, all contain gene regu...

A group of genes that play an essential role in building components of our cells can also impact human lifespan, finds a new study led by UCL researchers.

The genes have previously been found to extend lifespan in small organisms, such as making fruit flies live 10% longer, but this is the first time scientists have demonstrated a link in people as well, as they report in a new Genome Research paper.

Co-lead author Dr. Nazif Alic (UCL Institute of Healthy Ageing) said, “We have already seen from extensive previous research that inhibiting certain genes involved in making proteins in our cells, can extend lifespan in model organisms such as yeast, worms and flies...

Several different causes of ageing have been discovered, but the question remains whether there are common underlying mechanisms that determine ageing and lifespan. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing and the CECAD Cluster of Excellence in Ageing research at the University Cologne have now come across folate metabolism in their search for such basic mechanisms. Its regulation underlies many known ageing signalling pathways and leads to longevity. This may provide a new possibility to broadly improve human health during ageing.

In recent decades, several cellular signalling pathways have been discovered that regulate the lifespan of an organism and are thus of enormous importance for a...