longevity tagged posts

Japanese Food Guide Spinning Top

Closer adherence to Japanese dietary guidelines is associated with a lower risk of death from all causes and death from cardiovascular disease, particularly stroke, finds a study published by The BMJ today. The findings suggest that balanced consumption of grains, vegetables, fruits and adequate intake of fish and meat, can contribute to longevity in the Japanese population.

In 2005, the Japanese government developed the spinning top – a Japanese food guide – to illustrate the balance and quantity of food in the daily Japanese diet. A team of researchers, led by Kayo Kurotani at the National Centre for Global Health and Medicine in Tokyo, set out to examine the association between adherence to the food guide and total and cause specific mortality.

They used...

Using Drosophila (the fruit fly) as a model organism, the research team had identified a single nucleotide mutation in the mitochondrial DNA sequence which encodes one of the core energy producing genes.

“This mutation made males sterile but remarkably the ill effects were observed only in males; females who harbour this mutation maintain their fertility. This very same mutation that causes male infertility results in them living longer than flies that don’t have this mutation. However, while remaining fertile, females that carry this mutation have shorter lives,” Ms Camus said.
Co-author Dr Ted Morrow, University of Sussex, said that this mutation is not the only one located within the mitochondria to affect longevity.

Human mitochondrial DNA.

Dr Damian Dowling suggested the study repres...

Using long-lived smokers as their phenotype, the authors of a study identified a network of SNPs (a DNA sequence variation occurring commonly within a population) that allow certain individuals to better withstand environmental damage (like smoking) and mitigate damage. Collectively, these SNPs were strongly associated with high survival rates.

Morgan E. Levine said: “We identified a set of genetic markers that together seem to promote longevity. What’s more, many of these markers are in pathways that were discovered to be important for aging and lifespan in animal models. There is evidence that these genes may facilitate lifespan extension by increasing cellular maintenance and repair...