Aging, Author Interviews / 16.12.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte PhD Professor, Roger Guillemin Chair Salk Institute of Biological Science's Gene Expression Laboratory MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Previous studies from different laboratories including ours demonstrated that cellular reprogramming to pluripotency has the capacity to rejuvenate old cells in culture (in a dish) to a younger state. In 2011, we published a study in Nature demonstrating that cellular reprogramming could rejuvenate cells from patients suffering from Hutchinson–Gilford progeria syndrome (HGPS), a premature aging syndrome. The current study started after this publication back in 2012 and the two major questions that we had were: -Could partial, but not complete, cellular reprogramming rejuvenate cells? -Could partial reprogramming rejuvenated cells in a living organism improving its health and lifespan? (more…)
Aging, Author Interviews, Cancer Research, Genetic Research / 16.12.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jerry W. Shay PhD Professor Department of Cell Biology, UT Southwestern Medical Center MedicalResearch.com: What did you find? Response: Telomeres are the ends of chromosomes and they gradually shortened with every cell division. There have been multiple studies proposing that shortened telomeres correlate with human aging. Most cancers overcome the shortening of telomeres and aging by activating the enzyme, telomerase. Surprisingly, the human telomerase gene (hTERT) is very close to the telomere on chromosome 5p. During human development telomerase is active until about 18 weeks of gestation. It has been a mystery until this present work of what actually causes telomerase to become silenced. We found in this current work that when telomeres are long during development the telomere loops over and helps to silence the telomerase gene. However, as we age and telomeres get progressively shorter, then telomerase becomes permissive for activation and possibly initiation of cancer. This study in part explain why most cancers are in the 65 and older segment of the population. (more…)
Aging, Author Interviews, Genetic Research, JAMA, Macular Degeneration, Ophthalmology / 08.12.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: dr-anneke-i-den-hollanderAnneke I. den Hollander, PhD Department of Ophthalmology and Department of Human Genetics Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour Radboud University Medical Center Nijmegen, the Netherland MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Age-related macular degeneration is caused by a combination of genetic and environmental factors. Rare genetic variants in the complement system have been described in AMD, but their effect remains largely unexplored. In this study we aimed to determine the effect of rare genetic variants in the complement system on complement levels and activity in serum. MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings? Response: Carriers of CFI variants showed decreased FI levels, carriers of C9 Pro167Ser had increased C9 levels, while C3 and FH levels were not altered. Carriers of CFH and CFI variants had a reduced ability to degrade C3b, which for CFI was linked to reduced serum FI levels. (more…)
Aging, Author Interviews, Cancer Research, Global Health, JAMA / 06.12.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Christina Fitzmaurice, MD, MPH Assistant Professor Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation University of Washington Seattle, WA MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Cancer is the second leading cause of death worldwide behind cardiovascular diseases. We found that cancer cases increased by 33% from 13.1 million cases in 2005 to 17.5 million in 2015. The largest driver behind this increase was an aging population, followed by a growing population worldwide. The smallest factor contributing to this increase was a rise in cancer incidence rates. Because of increasing life expectancy and better control of communicable diseases cancer will remain a major burden in the foreseeable future. Adjusting and building health systems that can appropriately deal with this challenge is only possible with good data on the burden of cancer. In our study we estimate the number of cancer cases, and cancer deaths over time for 32 cancers in 195 countries and territories from 1990 to 2015. We also estimate how many years of life were lost due to cancer as well as disability adjusted life years and a summary measure that combines these two into disability adjusted life years. (more…)
Aging, Author Interviews, Dermatology / 05.10.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Simone Ribero, M.D., Ph.D. University of Turin Department of Medical Sciences Turin. Italy & King’s College London Department of Twin Research and Genetic Epidemiology St Thomas’ campus London MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: For many years dermatologists have identified that the skin of acne sufferers appears to age more slowly than in those who have not experienced any acne in their lifetime. We have demonstrated in our paper that there is an association between acne and longer telomere length that means that acne patients , with the same anagraphic age , have a younger chronological age. (more…)
Aging, Author Interviews, Genetic Research / 23.09.2016

Dr-Bastiaan-Heijmans.jpg MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Bastiaan Heijmans Leiden University Medical Center MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Epigenetic change is a hallmark of ageing but its link to ageing mechanisms in humans remains poorly understood. While DNA methylation at many CpG sites closely tracks chronological age, DNA methylation changes relevant to biological age are expected to gradually dissociate from chronological age, mirroring the increased heterogeneity in health status at older ages. In a large-scale analysis of the methylome of over 3000 individuals, we discovered and validated 6000 sites in the genome that became more variable in their DNA methylation level with age. These sites frequently co-localized with repressed regions that are characterized by polycomb repression. While sites accumulating variability with age were commonly associated with the expression of (neuro)developmental genes in cis, they were linked to transcriptional activity of genes in trans that have a key role in well-established ageing pathways such as intracellular metabolism, apoptosis, and DNA damage response. (more…)
Aging, Author Interviews, Genetic Research, UCLA / 17.08.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Michael Gurven, Professor Department of Anthropology University of California Santa Barbara, CA 93106 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Understanding the sources of ethnic and sex disparities in health and longevity is critical in order to insure the health and well-being of everyone. We often hear about disparities due to differences in health care access, education, income, and sometimes genetic differences. But what we've done here is to employ a new biomarker developed by Steve Horvath, called the "epigenetic clock", which measures the cumulative changes to the epigenome, i.e. alterations to DNA that affects gene activity and expression but do not alter the DNA itself. This new measure is arguably one of the best biomarkers of aging out there today - so it's indeed a biological measure, but tells a different story than conventional genetic differences. Instead epigenetic age is influenced by the lived experience, physical and social environment, and genetic make-up of individuals. (more…)
Aging, Author Interviews, Heart Disease, JACC / 17.08.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr Janice Atkins Research Fellow Epidemiology and Public Health University of Exeter Medical School RD&E Hospital Wonford Barrack Road, Exeter MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: We have previously shown that having longer-lived parents increases your likelihood of living longer, and family history of heart attacks is already used by physicians to identify patients at increased risk of disease. However, it has been unclear how the health advantages of having longer lived parents is transferred to their middle-aged offspring. Our study of nearly 200,000 UK volunteers aged 55-73 at baseline, and followed for 8 years using health records data, found that having longer-lived parents reduced the risk of morbidity and mortality in the participants. We found that for each parent that lived beyond 70 years of age the participants had 20% less chance of dying from heart disease. To illustrate this, in a group of 1,000 people whose father’s died at 70 and followed for 10 years, on average 50 would die from heart disease. When compared to a group whose father’s died at 80, on average only 40 would die from heart disease over the same 10-year period. Similar trends were seen in the mother’s. The relationship between parental age at death and survival and health in their offspring is complex, with many factors playing a role. Shared environment and lifestyle choices play a large role, including smoking habits, high alcohol consumption, low physical activity and obesity; but even accounting for these factors parents lifespan was still predictive in their offspring. The biggest genetics effects on lifespan in our studies affected the participant’s blood pressure, their cholesterol levels, their Body Mass Index, and their likelihood to be addicted to tobacco. These are all factors that affect risk of heart disease, so is consistent with the lower rates of heart disease in the offspring. (more…)
Aging, Author Interviews, BMJ, Geriatrics, Mental Health Research / 10.08.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Faiza Tabassum, PhD Southampton Statistical Sciences Research Institute  University of Southampton Southampton, UK MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Previous research has shown that volunteering in older age is associated with better mental and physical health, but it’s unclear whether this extends to other age groups. We aimed to examine the association of volunteering with mental health or well-being among the British population across all ages. The British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) was used which has collected information from 1991 to 2008 from over 5000 households. The published study has analysed over 66,000 responses representing the whole of the UK. The BHPS included a wide range of questions on leisure time activities, which covered the frequency of formal volunteering—from at least once a week through to once a year or less, or never. The BHPS also included a validated proxy for mental health/emotional wellbeing known as the GHQ-12. (more…)
Aging, Author Interviews, Neurological Disorders, Weight Research / 06.08.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Lisa Ronan, PhD Department of Psychiatry University of Cambridge Neuroscience MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: A growing body of literature relates common markers of aging to those observed in obesity and supports the hypothesis that obesity may accelerate or advance the onset of brain aging. To investigate this relationship at a population level we analysed the white matter volume of the brain in 473 adult subjects ages 20 - 87 years and contrasted these volumes between subjects who were lean (BMI between 18.5 - 25) and those who were overweight / obese (BMI > 25). Our results suggest that the latter group had significantly smaller white matter volumes when compared to their lean age-matched counterparts. We found that this difference in volume equated to a brain-age increase of 10 years in the overweight / obese group. We found no evidence that obesity impacted on cognitive ability. (more…)
Aging, Author Interviews, Diabetes, Diabetologia / 29.07.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Stephanie Read, PhD University of Edinburgh, UK MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: The number of people living with type 2 diabetes in Scotland is increasing. We wanted to identify to what extent this trend was due to people living longer with type 2 diabetes or due to increasing numbers of new cases each year. (more…)
Aging, Author Interviews, Gender Differences, Genetic Research, Menopause, UCLA / 28.07.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Morgan Elyse Levine, PhD Postdoctoral Fellow Department of Human Genetics University of California, Los Angeles MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: From an evolutionary perspective, aging and reproduction are two processes that are linked. For instance, in order to maximize fitness, an individual has to survive and remain healthy enough to: 1) reproduce and 2) insure offspring survive to reproductive age. Thus, the rate of aging is tied to a species’ timing of reproductive senescence and necessary length of parental involvement. There is also evidence that among humans, women with longer reproductive stages (later age at menopause, ability to conceive at older ages) are more likely to live to age 100, which we hypothesize is because they age slower. Using an epigenetic biomarker believed to capture biological aging (previously developed by the Principle Investigator of this study, Steve Horvath), we tested whether age at menopause, surgical menopause, and use of menopausal hormone therapies were associated with a woman’s aging rate. We found that the blood of women who experienced menopause at earlier ages (especially those who underwent surgical menopause) was “older” than expected, suggesting they were aging faster on a biological level than women who experienced menopause at later ages. We also found that buccal epithelium samples (cells that line the inside of the cheek) were epigenetically younger than expected (signifying slower aging) for post-menopausal women who had taken menopausal hormone therapy, compared to post-menopausal women who had never taken any form of menopausal hormone therapy. Finally, we had a number of results that suggested that the previously mentioned findings were a result of the process of menopause directly speeding up the aging process—rather than the alternative explanation, which would have been that women who aged faster experience menopause earlier. (more…)
Aging, Author Interviews / 15.07.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Martin Piskacek Laboratory of Cancer Biology and Genetics Department of Pathological Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, Masaryk University Brno, Czech Republic MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: From genome-wide expression analyses, the B lymphocytes avoid the aging until 60 years of age. We did not found any gene expression differences between young (30-45 years) and early aged healthy donors (50-60 years). Our results demonstrate the potential of hematopoietic stem cells to generate uncompromised B lymphocytes in early elderly. These are very encouraging findings for general health, because the immunity maintenance does not seem to need artificial intervention to keep B lymphocytes uncompromised in the early elderly. (more…)
Aging, Author Interviews, Dermatology / 28.06.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Ava Shamban MD Assistant Clinical Professor of Dermatology UCLA-Geffen School of Medicine MedicalResearch.com Editor’s note: Dr. Ava Shamban, a dermatologist frequently featured on CBS’ The Doctors as the skin maven on ABC’s Extreme Makeover discusses the recent announcement of the 20th Global Anniversary of Restylane. MedicalResearch.com: Would you briefly explain what Restylane® is? What are the main indications for the Restylane® portfolio of products? Response: Restylane is a non-animal, stabilized hyaluronic acid (NASHA), a unique patented HA stabilization technology which contains pure hyaluronic. The Restylane family of products can be used to design individualized treatments with natural-looking results and long-lasting effects. With 190 scientific publications and 150 clinical studies, and more than 3,000 patients in clinical studies, the Restylane family of products are safe and effective products that have been FDA approved based on extensive clinical data. Restylane® is one of the world’s most studied wrinkle fillers and has been used in more than 65 countries worldwide in over 28 million treatments. The main indications for the Restylane portfolio products is to improve the overall appearance of the aging face. Whether you’re young or old, whether you have a fine line or wrinkle or a deeper fold there is a product in this portfolio that can improve the appearance of your face and reverse signs of aging. (more…)
Aging, Author Interviews, Frailty, Genetic Research / 22.06.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. David Sebastián IRB Barcelona and CIBERDEM researcher MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: One of the alterations that most affects the quality of life of the elderly is muscle wastage and the resulting loss of strength, a condition known as sarcopenia. At about 55 years old, people begin to lose muscle mass, this loss continues into old age, at which point it becomes critical. However, the underlying causes of sarcopenia are unknown and thus no treatment is available for this condition. Importantly, we have found that the mitochondrial protein Mitofusin 2 is required to preserve healthy muscles in mice. Mitofusin 2 is a mitochondrial protein involved in ensuring the correct function of mitochondria, and it has several activities related to autophagy, a crucial process for the removal of damaged mitochondria. The loss of Mitofusin 2 impedes the correct function of mitochondrial recycling and consequently damaged mitochondria accumulate in muscle cells. (more…)
Aging, Author Interviews, Gender Differences / 16.06.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Kathleen Fischer, PhD Department of Biology UAB | University of Alabama Birmingham Birmingham, AL MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Fischer: Aging is by far the greatest risk factor for most of the chronic, non-communicable diseases (e.g. cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes). By discovering the basic mechanisms responsible for aging we can find ways to extend healthy and productive life and reduce the burdens of chronic disease and disability experienced by individuals and society. Sex differences in longevity can provide novel insights into the basic biology of aging; however this aspect of aging has been largely ignored. Demographic data show that women outlive men in every society during every historical period and in every geographic area. In spite of this robust survival advantage, women suffer far greater morbidity late in life—a phenomenon described as the morbidity-mortality paradox. It is not clear whether this is a general mammalian pattern or something unique to humans. Research on sex differences in aging and age-related diseases in humans and a range of species will be crucial if we are going to identify the basic mechanisms responsible for the patterns we observe. (more…)
Aging, Alzheimer's - Dementia, Antioxidants, Author Interviews, Nutrition, Supplements / 04.06.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jennifer Lemon, PhD Research Associate Medical Radiation Sciences McMaster University MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Dr. Lemon: Research with the supplement began in 2000, as part of my doctoral degree; we developed the supplement to try to offset the severe cognitive deterioration and accelerated aging in a mouse model we were working with in the lab. Based on aging research, five mechanisms appeared to be key contributors to the process of aging; those include oxidative stress, inflammation, mitochondrial deterioration, membrane dysfunction and impaired glucose metabolism. The criteria we used for including components in the supplement were as follows: each one of the 30 components had scientific evidence to show they acted on one or more of the above mechanisms were able to be taken orally, and were available to humans over-the-counter. Even then the hope was that if the formulation was successful, this would make it more available to the general public. (more…)
Aging, Author Interviews, End of Life Care, NEJM, Social Issues / 24.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jill Cameron, PhD Canadian Institutes of Health Research New Investigator Associate Professor, Department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy Rehabilitation Sciences Institute Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Cameron: In the world of critical illness, a lot of research has focused on helping people to survive – and now that more people are surviving, we need to ask ourselves, what does quality of life and wellbeing look like afterwards for both patients and caregivers? The aim of our research was to identify factors associated with family caregiver health and wellbeing during the first year after patients were discharged from the Intensive Care Unit. We examined factors related to the patient and their functional wellbeing, the caregiving situation including the impact it has on caregivers everyday lives, and caregiver including their sense of control over their lives and available social support. We used Pearlin’s Caregiving Stress Process model to guide this research. From 2007-2014, caregivers of patients who received seven or more days of mechanical ventilation in an ICU across 10 Canadian university-affiliated hospitals were given self-administered questionnaires to assess caregiver and patient characteristics, caregiver depression symptoms, psychological wellbeing, and health-related quality of life. Assessments occurred seven days and three, six and 12-months after ICU discharge. The study found that most caregivers reported high levels of depression symptoms, which commonly persisted up to one year and did not improve in some. Caregiver sense of control, impact on caregivers’ everyday lives, and social support had the largest relationships with the outcomes. Caregivers’ experienced better health outcomes when they were older, caring for a spouse, had higher income, better social support, sense of control, and caregiving had less of a negative impact on their everyday lives. No patient characteristics or indicators of illness severity were associated with caregiver outcomes. Poor caregiver outcomes may compromise patients’ rehabilitation potential and sustainability of home care. Identifying risk factors for caregiver distress is an important first step to prevent more suffering and allow ICU survivors and caregivers to regain active and fulfilling lives. (more…)
Aging, Author Interviews, Blood Pressure - Hypertension, Melatonin / 19.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Denis Gubin The Tyumen Medical University Tyumen, Russia MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?  Dr. Gubin: The older we get, the more likely our circadian rhythms are disrupted. For example, blood pressure, BP, not only tends to increase but as well become more irregular. One of the possible causes is an age-dependent deficit of endogenous melatonin production. We have shown that exogenous melatonin helps to ameliorate both trends – lowers  blood pressure and also stabilizes and synchronizes blood pressure and heart rate variability. (more…)
Aging, Author Interviews, Cancer, Cancer Research / 10.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Corinne Leach, MPH, MS, PHD Strategic Director, Cancer and Aging Research American Cancer Society, Inc. Atlanta, GA 30303 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Leach: Using linked data from cancer registries and the Medicare Health Outcomes Survey, we prospectively examined the short-term impact of cancer on the functioning, development of and worsening of age-related health conditions among 921 older adults who developed cancer compared to 4,605 propensity score matched controls. We found that cancer groups demonstrated greater declines in activities of daily living and physical functioning compared to controls with the greatest change for lung cancer patients. Having a cancer diagnosis increased risk for depression but did not increase the odds of developing arthritis in the hand/hip, incontinence (except for prostate cancer), or vision/hearing problems. Having a cancer diagnosis also did not exacerbate the severity of arthritis or foot neuropathy. (more…)
Aging, Author Interviews, Mental Health Research / 25.04.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Jesus Bertran-Gonzalez, Clem Jones Centre for Ageing Dementia Research, Queensland Brain Institute University of Queensland Brisbane Australia MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: It has long been recognized that elderly people often show behavioural inflexibility, for example they may have difficulties in finding alternative routes to reach a previously known place in neighbourhoods that have changed, or they may find it difficult to remember new episodes in their life, as opposed to very old ones. The question that we wanted to address in this study is how this memory rigidity in old individuals affects their goal-directed performance, as this can directly impair their capacity to adjust their behaviour to new demands in the environment. Specifically, we wanted to investigate the changes in the brain that occur with normal ageing that have these negative effects on adaptation, and that can potentially keep old people from achieving their needs. (more…)
Aging, Author Interviews, Melanoma, Nature, Wistar / 08.04.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Ashani T. Weeraratna, Ph.D. Associate Professor Melanoma Research Center The Wistar Institute Philadelphia, PA 19104 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Weeraratna: The background for this study is the fact that advancing age remains the greatest risk factor for the development of many cancers, and melanoma is no exception. We found that age-related changes in normal skin, specifically dermal fibroblasts, increase both the metastatic potential and therapeutic resistance of melanoma cells. The most fascinating thing is that even targeted therapy, which should depend solely on the interaction between the drug and the target within the tumor cell is affected by the age of the microenvironment. (more…)
Aging, Author Interviews, Lifestyle & Health / 15.03.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Ding Ding (Melody), Ph.D., MPH NHMRC Early Career Senior Research Fellow/Sydney University Postdoctoral Research Fellow Prevention Research Collaboration Sydney School of Public Health The University of Sydney MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Ding: This study used data from the Sax Institute’s 45 and Up Study, a large Australia based cohort of adults aged 45 or older. We followed around 25,000 participants who were working at baseline (2006-2008) for an average of 3 years (follow-up in 2010). During the follow-up period, around 3,000 participants retired from the workforce. Participants were asked to report their health-related lifestyle behaviors, such as physical activity, smoking, and sleep time at both baseline and follow-up. We found that those who retired overall had significant improvement in their lifestyle as compared with those who did not, including more physical activity, less sitting time, and more sleep. Female smokers who retired were also more likely to have quit smoking. (more…)
Aging, Author Interviews, Exercise - Fitness, Heart Disease / 02.03.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dafna Merom, PhD School of Science and Health University of Western Sydney Penrith New South Wales Australia Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Merom: It is well established that moderate-intensity physical activity can reduced the risk of having cardiovascular disease (CVD), yet we know very little about the CVD benefits  that is associated with specific activity type. Considering that different types of physical activity challenge muscular-skeletal, neurological and cardio-respiratory systems differently, and that they involves different levels of psychosocial or cognitive demands, one may expect that different types of PA/sport may have differential relationships with health. Previous research found that frequent dancing protected against dementia, to a larger extent than walking. Since  cardiovascular disease and dementia share similar risk factors we hypothesised that dancing will also protect against CVD, even more than walking given the multi-dimensional nature of dance; Dance integrate physical, cognitive, emotional and social elements in its execution. We found that light-intensity dancing as well as light-intensity walking were not protective against  cardiovascular disease mortality. However, dancers who were at least slightly out of breath or sweaty had 46% lower risk of Cardiovascular death. Compared to fast walkers, dancing further reduced the risk of dying from cardiovascular disease by 21%.” (more…)
Aging, Author Interviews, Gender Differences / 19.02.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: John Tower, PhD Professor, Molecular and Computational Biology Program Department of Biological Sciences USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA 90089-2910 Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Tower: Possible interventions in aging that are currently being studied include alterations to the diet and also drugs that target the p53 and TOR pathways.  Our results show that these manipulations sometimes have opposite effects on survival in males versus females. In addition, our results show that the same “low-vitality” individuals in the population are susceptible to death caused by disease and to death caused by aging.  This is called the “Strehler-Mildvan” relationship, and these “low-vitality” individuals could be related to human frailty. (more…)
Aging, Author Interviews, Cognitive Issues, JAMA, Mayo Clinic, Weight Research / 01.02.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Rosebud O. Roberts, M.B., Ch.B. Mayo Clinic Rochester, Minn.  Medical Research: What is the background for this study? Dr. Roberts: Decline in weight has been observed 10-20 years prior to onset of dementia. We wanted to study whether this decline also occurs for mild cognitive impairment (an intermediate stage in the progression from normal cognition to dementia). Medical Research: What are the main findings? Dr. Roberts: The main finding was that there was indeed a decline in weight (from the maximum weight in midlife to weight assessed in late life) was associated with a increased risk of mild cognitive impairment. (more…)
Aging, Author Interviews, Columbia, Depression, Geriatrics / 27.01.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Stanford Chihuri MPH Center for Injury Epidemiology and Prevention Department of Anesthesiology Columbia University Medical Center New York City, New York  Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: For many older adults, driving is instrumental to their daily living and is a strong indicator of self-control, personal freedom and independence. This study assesses and synthesizes evidence in the research literature on the impact of driving cessation on subsequent health and well-being of older adults. The main findings are that driving cessation in older adults appears to contribute to a variety of health problems, particularly depression. (more…)
Aging, Author Interviews, Autism, Mental Health Research, PLoS, Schizophrenia / 25.01.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Richard Deth PhD Professor of Pharmacology Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences Nova Southeastern University Medical Research: What is the background for this study? Dr. Deth: Vitamin B12 plays a crucial role in regulating and promoting methylation reactions (the attachment of a carbon atom to molecules), including DNA methylation. Recent research has identified methylation of DNA and consequential changes in gene expression as crucial factors in brain development, as well as in memory formation and maintenance of brain function during aging. More specifically, the cause(s) of neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism remain obscure, although numerous studies have demonstrated oxidative stress and low plasma levels of the antioxidant glutathione (GSH) in autism.  Medical Research: What are the main findings? Dr. Deth: We found that brain levels of vitamin B12, especially the methylation-regulating form known as methylB12, decrease significantly with age, even though blood levels don’t show a similar decrease. Importantly, much lower levels of methylB12 were found in subjects with autism and schizophrenia compared to normal subjects of a similar age. Animal studies showed that impaired GSH formation is associated with decreased brain B12 levels. (more…)
Aging, Author Interviews, Breast Cancer / 16.12.2015

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Susan K. Boolbol, MD, FACS Chief, Division of Breast Surgery Chief, Appel-Venet Comprehensive Breast Service Co-Director, Breast Surgery Fellowship Mount Sinai Beth Israel Associate Professor of Surgery Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai New York, NY 10003  Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr.Boolbol:  The background for this study is predicated on the USPSTF's recommendations that there is insufficient evidence to continue the use of screening mammography in women over the age of 75. According to the American College of Radiology, cancer detection rates via screening mammography should be at least 2.5 per 1000 mammograms at an institution, with reported rates as high as 4.7 cases per 1000. We reviewed 2057 screening mammograms in women aged 75 and older. We found 10 cases of breast cancer in this group. Of these cancers, 60% were invasive breast cancer. The breast cancer detection rate in this cohort was 4.9 per 1000 screening mammograms. (more…)
Aging, Author Interviews, Disability Research, Lancet / 09.12.2015

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Prof. Carol Jagger AXA Professor of Epidemiology of Ageing and Deputy Director of the Newcastle University Institute for Ageing (NUIA) Institute of Health & Society Campus for Ageing and Vitality Newcastle upon Tyne  Medical Research: What is the background for this study? Prof. Jagger: Although we know that life expectancy at older ages is increasing, there is still uncertainty about whether the extra years are healthy ones. Our results are based on data from the Cognitive Function and Ageing Studies (CFASI and II), two cohorts of people aged 65 years and over in three centres in England (Cambridgeshire, Newcastle and Nottingham) who were interviewed in 1991 and 2011. The participants, over 7000 people in each study, were recruited from general practices in the area and included those living in care homes to ensure our results reflect the total older population. Medical Research: What are the main findings? Prof. Jagger: We used three health measures to calculate the health expectancies at age 65: cognitive impairment, self-perceived health and disability (mild and moderate/severe). Over the 20 year period women’s life expectancy at age 65 increased by 3.6 years whilst they gained 4.4 years free of cognitive impairment, 3.1 years in good self-perceived health but only 0.5 years free of disability. Men on the other hand lived an extra 4.5 years in total with gains of 4.2 years free of disability, 3.8 years in good self-perceived health and 2.6 years free of disability. So all the extra years of life were free of cognitive impairment for women but most were spent with disability, although the gains were in mild rather than more severe disability. (more…)