The research community has come to see chronic inflammation and other age-related immune system dysfunctions as an important aspect of neurodegenerative conditions. Inflammation in the short term is necessary for defense against pathogens and regeneration following injury. Unresolved, constant inflammation is harmful to tissue structure and function, however, changing cell behavior for the worse. In brain tissue, the effects of inflammatory signaling on the behavior of innate immune cells called microglia appears particularly important. Neurogenerative conditions are characterized by activated ..read more

Mitrix Bio is one of the companies developing the means to produce large amounts of mitochondria for transplantation. Cells will take up new mitochondria from the surrounding environment, and mitochondria can be harvested from cell cultures. Mitochondrial function declines with age, the result of (a) gene expression changes in the cell nucleus that alter mitochondrial dynamics and the quality control process of mitophagy, and (b) damage to mitochondrial DNA. Evidence from animal studies suggests that replacing mitochondria in aged tissues produces benefits to health and organ function that las ..read more

Researchers here look at cellular dysfunction that may form the earliest stages of Alzheimer's disease, prior to the accumulation of misfolded amyloid-β and cognitive decline. In general, intervening early in the progression of a disease will always be easier, given the right target. The challenge lies in identifying and understanding the causative mechanisms, in an environment in which (a) there is little access to brain tissue in the earliest stages of Alzheimer's disease, and (b) the animal models are highly artificial, as mice do not normally develop anything resembling Alzheimer's disease ..read more

Like the accumulation of senescent cells, loss of stem cell function is a problematic feature of aging. Also like the accumulation of senescent cells, loss of stem cell function is likely downstream of a combination of forms of molecular damage and consequent changes in cell behavior and cell signaling that are presently incompletely understood in detail and harder to address. Senescent cells can be cleared more readily than prevented, and stem cells may be more readily coerced into activity or replaced entirely than is the case for prevention of their age-related functional decline. Stemness ..read more

Researchers here discuss some of the results achieved in building the Human Skeletal Muscle Aging Atlas. Focusing on stem cells in muscle tissue, they find numerous changes in gene expression relating to inflammation and reduced activity. The chronic inflammation characteristic of aging, provoked by senescent cells and innate immune reactions to molecular damage, is known to be involved in many of the dysfunctions of aging. Loss of stem cell activity, and thus a reduced supply of daughter somatic cells to replace losses and repair damage, is one of those dysfunctions. Skeletal muscle aging is ..read more

Fight Aging! publishes news and commentary relevant to the goal of ending all age-related disease, to be achieved by bringing the mechanisms of aging under the control of modern medicine. This weekly newsletter is sent to thousands of interested subscribers. To subscribe or unsubscribe from the newsletter, please visit: https://www.fightaging.org/newsletter/ Longevity Industry Consulting Services Reason, the founder of Fight Aging! and Repair Biotechnologies, offers strategic consulting services to investors, entrepreneurs, and others interested in the longevity industry and its complexities ..read more

The Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS) is a view of aging as accumulated damage. Drawing from the extensive scientific literature on aging, the originators of SENS created an outline of the forms of cell and tissue damage that are fundamental causes of aging, in that they occur as a natural side-effect of the normal operation of our cellular biochemistry. So we might consider the loss of vital cells due to declining stem cell function, mutations to nuclear DNA and mitochondrial DNA, cross-linking of vital molecules in the extracellular matrix, accumulated metabolic waste in ..read more

Lipid metabolism is changed and disrupted with advancing age, as is the case for all complex mechanisms in the body. There are a great many different lipids present in the body; even the list of classes of lipid is a long one. Finding specific changes that relate to aging can be interesting, but the challenge lie in better understanding how those changes come about, and whether they causes significant harm to tissues. Many age-related changes in molecular biochemistry are far downstream of the important causes of aging and do not cause much further disruption in and of themselves. In recent y ..read more

The consensus of the research community on senescent cells in old tissues is that (a) their presence causes harm, and (b) treatments based on the selective removal of such cells will be beneficial, reversing many aspects of aging and age-related disease. These cells secrete a pro-inflammatory mix of signal molecules that is disruptive to tissue structure and function when maintained over time. Cells become senescent constantly throughout life, only to be destroyed by programmed cell death or by the immune system. With advancing age, newly created senescent cells are cleared ever more slowly, h ..read more

The balance of microbial populations making up the gut microbiome is different from individual to individual, and changes with age in detrimental ways. Pro-inflammatory microbes, as well as those that create otherwise harmful metabolites, expand in number at the expense of microbial populations that produce beneficial metabolites. Evidence strongly suggests that both variations between individuals and age-related changes in the gut microbiome can contribute to age-related disease and mortality. Here, for example, a study in rabbits shows that specific differences in the gut microbiome correlat ..read more