Aging

30 Sep

Posted at 20:29h in Aging, Author Interviews, Exercise - Fitness
Associate Professor Dafna Merom Ph.D Physical Activity and Health University of Western Sydney Penrith NSW AustraliaMedicalResearch.com Interview with: Associate Professor Dafna Merom Ph.D Physical Activity and Health University of Western Sydney Penrith NSW Australia   Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Merom: In a cohort of 1667 older Australian men (mean age 76.8 years) data on incident falls were  collected every four months by telephone interview. We compared the rate of falling over 48 months of follow-up of  men who participated in  golf, Calisthenics, lawn balls, aerobic machines and swimming.  We  found that only swimming was associated with 33% reduction in falls occurrence. We also found that swimmers performed better on balance tests in our baseline measurements. In particular on the postural stability test and for  those whose leisure activity was  only swimming, apart from walking and other lifestyle activities.

20 Sep

Posted at 08:34h in Aging, Author Interviews, Blood Pressure - Hypertension
Xuemei Sui, MD, MPH, PhD Assistant Professor, Department of Exercise Science Division of Health Aspects of Physical Activity Arnold School of Public Health University of South Carolina Columbia, SC 29208Xuemei Sui, MD, MPH, PhD Assistant Professor, Department of Exercise Science Division of Health Aspects of Physical Activity Arnold School of Public Health University of South Carolina Columbia, SC 29208 Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Sui: First, blood pressure is inversely associated with cardiorespiratory fitness levels among men. People in higher fitness categories had lower blood pressure than those in lower fitness categories. Second, fitness is a strong effect modifier for the systolic blood pressure aging trajectory. A higher fitness level can significantly delay the natural age-associated increase in blood pressure.

11 Sep

Posted at 11:45h in Aging, Author Interviews, Frailty
Professor Mark L. Wahlqvist, M.D., Ph.D. Institute of Population Health Sciences, National Health Research Institutes, Taiwan National Defense Medical Center, School of Public Health, Taiwan Monash Asia Institute, Monash University Melbourne, AustraliaMedicalResearch.com Interview with: Professor Mark L. Wahlqvist, M.D., Ph.D. Institute of Population Health Sciences, National Health Research Institutes, Taiwan National Defense Medical Center, School of Public Health, Taiwan Monash Asia Institute, Monash University Melbourne, Australia Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study? Prof. Wahlqvist: Poor appetite and dietary quality as judged by diversity separately (each by about 50%) and together (by about 80%) increase the mortality risk in older persons living in the community.

08 Sep

Posted at 15:49h in Aging, Author Interviews
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Benedict Truman Associate Director for Science CDC’s National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Truman: In 2008, healthy life expectancy, which isthe number of years a person is expected to live in good or better health after a particular age, varied by sex, race/ethnicity and geographical regions in the United States. In each of four U.S. census regions, females were expected to live longer and healthier lives than males; non-Hispanic whites were expected to live shorter but healthier lives than Hispanics; and non-Hispanic whites were expected to live longer and healthier lives than non-Hispanic blacks.

28 Aug

Posted at 20:00h in Aging, Author Interviews, BMJ, Heart Disease
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Philip Haycock, PhD Post-Doctoral Research Assistant MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit University of Bristol Bristol, BS8 2BN, UK Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Haycock: We found that shorter telomeres were significantly associated with risk of coronary heart disease and that the association was independent of conventional vascular risk factors, including age, sex, body mass index, smoking, history of diabetes, blood pressure and lipid markers.

26 Aug

Posted at 20:02h in Aging, Author Interviews, Genetic Research
Dr. Manuel Serrano PhD Tumour Suppression Group CNIO, Melchor Fernandez Almagro 3, 28029 Madrid, Spain.MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Manuel Serrano PhD Tumour Suppression Group CNIO, Melchor Fernandez Almagro 3, 28029 Madrid, Spain. Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Serrano: We investigated the contribution of rare genetic variation to human exceptional longevity (EL, individuals with ≥100 years of age) by exome-sequencing long-lived siblings in three different families where exceptional longevity clustered. We found only one gene that harbored rare variants that was likely to contribute to human longevity across all three families and this gene was the Apolipoprotein B gene (APOB). We further found that the frequency of these rare APOB variants associated with familial exceptional longevity was greater in a cohort of 206 nonfamilial cases of exceptional longevity compared to the control population, though this association did not reach statistical significance. In addition, we found rare variants in many genes within individual families that are likely to contribute to human longevity given previous studies in animals.

03 Jul

Posted at 01:47h in Aging, Author Interviews, Sleep Disorders
Dr. June Chi-Yan Lo Research Fellow Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School SingaporeMedicalResearch.com: Interview with: Dr. June Chi-Yan Lo Research Fellow Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School Singapore MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Lo: The Duke-NUS study examined the data of 66 older Chinese adults, from the Singapore-Longitudinal Aging Brain Study. Participants underwent structural MRI brain scans measuring brain volume and neuropsychological assessments testing cognitive function every two years. Additionally, their sleep duration was recorded through a questionnaire. Those who slept fewer hours showed evidence of faster brain aging and decline in cognitive performance.

12 May

Posted at 22:33h in Aging, Author Interviews, JAMA
Richard D. Semba, MD MPH W. Richard Green Professor of Ophthalmology The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Baltimore, MD 21287MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Richard D. Semba, MD MPH W. Richard Green Professor of Ophthalmology The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Baltimore, MD  21287 MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Semba: Resveratrol levels in older adults are not related to the risk of heart disease or cancer and are not related with lifespan. These findings were made in the InCHIANTI Study, a rigorously conducted study of human aging that is sponsored by the National Institute on Aging.

30 Mar

Posted at 14:10h in Aging, Author Interviews, Breast Cancer, Chemotherapy, JNCI
Hanna Sanoff MD, MPH Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center Department of Medicine University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NCMedicalResearch.com Interview with: Hanna Sanoff MD, MPH Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center Department of Medicine University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Sanoff: We measured p16, a protein that increases with cellular aging, in blood cells of women receiving chemotherapy for breast cancer. We found that a standard course of chemotherapy led to an increase in p16 expression equivalent to what we have previous seen in people over the course of 10-15 years of chronological aging. This increase persisted in cancer survivors an average of three and half years after treatment.

21 Jan

Posted at 11:47h in Aging, Author Interviews
Paula A. Rochon MD, MPH, FRCPC Vice President, Research, Women's College Hospital Senior Scientist, Women's College Research Institute Professor, Department of Medicine University of Toronto Toronto, Ontario CanadaMedicalResearch.com Interview with Paula A. Rochon MD, MPH, FRCPC Vice President, Research, Women's College Hospital Senior Scientist, Women's College Research Institute Professor, Department of Medicine University of Toronto, Ontario Canada MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Rochon: Our main findings are that there are now more than 1800 centenarians in Ontario. Among those over 100 years of age, 60 per cent are 101 years of age or older. In addition, most centenarians are women (85 per cent), and this percentage increases to 90 per cent among those who are 105 years of age and older.

21 Jan

Posted at 11:38h in Aging, CMAJ
Professor Andrew Steptoe, MA, DPhil, DSc, FMedSci Director, Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care University College London British Heart Foundation Professor of Psychology Department of Epidemiology and Public Health London WC1E 6BTMedicalResearch.com Interview with: Professor Andrew Steptoe, MA, DPhil, DSc, FMedSci Director, Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care University College London British Heart Foundation Professor of Psychology Department of Epidemiology and Public Health London WC1E 6BT MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Steptoe: We are trying to understand whether positive well-being has beneficial effects as far as health and physical function is concerned.  The main findings are that the risk of developing impairments in activities of daily living (things life being able to bath or shower without help) over the next few years among older people is lower in people who enjoy life more. In addition, enjoyment of life predicted less decrease in walking speed over our 8 year study period in this sample of older men and women. Of course, these associations could be due to many things: the people with greater enjoyment of life could be more affluent, have less physical illness or disability to start with, or have healthier lifestyles at the outset, and these factors could predict the changes in physical function over time. But what we found is that baseline health, economic circumstances, and lifestyle explain only part of the association between enjoyment of life and deterioration in function. So the research suggests that enjoyment of life contributes to healthier and more active old age.

05 Nov

Posted at 23:21h in Aging, General Medicine, McGill
Dr. Laurent Azoulay Project Leader, Lady Davis Institute Assistant Professor, Department of Oncology, McGill UniversityMedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Laurent Azoulay Project Leader, Lady Davis Institute Assistant Professor, Department of Oncology, McGill University MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Azoulay: Using large population-based databases from the UK, we assembled a cohort of men newly-diagnosed with non-metastatic prostate cancer. Within this group of men, the use of statins after prostate cancer diagnosis was associated with a 24% decreased risk in cancer-related mortality. We observed duration- as well as a dose-response relationships. Furthermore, in a secondary analysis, we observed that the benefits were greater among men who used also used statins before their diagnosis, with more modest yet significant benefits among men who initiated the treatment after their diagnosis. The latter result is one of the novelties of this study, as it provides an estimate of the potential benefits of statins, if used in the adjuvant setting.

11 Oct

Posted at 14:16h in Aging, Author Interviews, Memory
Prof. Timothy Salthouse Brown-Forman Professor of Psychology Department of Psychology University of Virginia Charlottesville, VA 22904-4400MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Prof. Timothy Salthouse Brown-Forman Professor of Psychology Department of Psychology University of Virginia Charlottesville, VA 22904-4400 MedicalResearch.com: What prompted this work? Prof. Salthouse: I think it is noteworthy that the research originated as an undergraduate project by Arielle Mandell. Ms. Mandell was supported by a University of Virginia Harrison Undergraduate Research Award while she was doing the research, and a report of the research served as her Distinguished Major Thesis. The research was prompted by the observation that according to self-reports, tip-of-the-tongue experiences occur more and more frequently with increased age, and often seem to be associated with concerns about memory decline and possibly impending dementia. We wondered
  1. 1) whether these self-reports are valid, and
  2. 2) if they are valid, do they truly indicate age-related failures of the type of memory used in the diagnosis of dementia.

18 Sep

Posted at 22:57h in Aging, CMAJ, Inflammation
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Tasnime Akbaraly  PhD Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale Montpellier, France MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Akbaraly: The aim of this study was to examine the association between chronic inflammation and a range of aging phenotypes, assessed approximately 10 years later in a large British population of men and women  -The Whitehall II Study-. As inflammation characterises a wide range of pathological processes, we considered several aging phenotypes, including cardiovascular disease (fatal and non-fatal), non-cardiovascular mortality and successful aging which encompasses optimal functioning across different physical, mental, and cognitive domains We found that chronic inflammation characterized by high levels of interleukin-6 (>2 pg/mL) twice over the 5-year exposure period nearly halved the odds of successful aging after 10–years of follow-up compared to maintaining low levels of interleukin-6 (<1pg/mL twice over the exposure period). Chronic inflammation was also associated with increased odds of future cardiovascular disease and non-cardiovascular mortality in a dose-response fashion. These associations were found to be independent of socio-economic factors, health behaviours (smoking, physical activity), and conditions such as obesity as well as the use of anti-inflammatory drugs and acute inflammation.