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Aging’s Top 10 Papers in 2023 (Crossref Data)

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Crossref is a non-profit organization that logs and updates citations for scientific publications. Each month, Crossref identifies a list of the most popular Aging (Aging-US) papers based on the number of times a DOI is successfully resolved. 

Below are Crossref’s Top 10 Aging DOIs in 2023.

#10: Old-age-induced obesity reversed by a methionine-deficient diet or oral administration of recombinant methioninase-producing Escherichia coli in C57BL/6 mice

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.204783

Authors: Yutaro Kubota, Qinghong Han, Jose Reynoso, Yusuke Aoki, Noriyuki Masaki, Koya Obara, Kazuyuki Hamada, Michael Bouvet, Takuya Tsunoda, and Robert M. Hoffman

Institutions: AntiCancer Inc., University of California San Diego and Showa University School of Medicine 

Quote: “This is the first report that showed the efficacy of methionine restriction to reverse old-age-induced obesity.”

#9: Metformin use history and genome-wide DNA methylation profile: potential molecular mechanism for aging and longevity

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.204498 

Authors: Pedro S. Marra, Takehiko Yamanashi, Kaitlyn J. Crutchley, Nadia E. Wahba, Zoe-Ella M. Anderson, Manisha Modukuri, Gloria Chang, Tammy Tran, Masaaki Iwata, Hyunkeun Ryan Cho, and Gen Shinozaki

Institutions: Stanford University School of Medicine, University of Iowa, Tottori University Faculty of Medicine, University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Medicine, and Oregon Health and Science University School of Medicine 

Quote: “In this study, we compared genome-wide DNA methylation rates among metformin users and nonusers […]”

#8: Age prediction from human blood plasma using proteomic and small RNA data: a comparative analysis

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.204787 

Authors: Jérôme Salignon, Omid R. Faridani, Tasso Miliotis, Georges E. Janssens, Ping Chen, Bader Zarrouki, Rickard Sandberg, Pia Davidsson, and Christian G. Riedel

Institutions: Karolinska Institutet, University of New South Wales, Garvan Institute of Medical Research, and AstraZeneca

Quote: “[…] we see our work as an indication that combining different molecular data types could be a general strategy to improve future aging clocks.”

#7: Characterization of the HDAC/PI3K inhibitor CUDC-907 as a novel senolytic

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.204616 

Authors: Fares Al-Mansour, Abdullah Alraddadi, Buwei He, Anes Saleh, Marta Poblocka, Wael Alzahrani, Shaun Cowley, and Salvador Macip

Institutions: University of Leicester, Najran University and Universitat Oberta de Catalunya

Quote: “The mechanisms of induction of senescent cell death by CUDC-907 remain to be fully elucidated.”

#6: Potential reversal of biological age in women following an 8-week methylation-supportive diet and lifestyle program: a case series

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.204602 

Authors: Kara N. Fitzgerald, Tish Campbell, Suzanne Makarem, and Romilly Hodges

Institutions: Institute for Functional Medicine, Virginia Commonwealth University and the American Nutrition Association

Quote: “[…] these data suggest that a methylation-supportive diet and lifestyle intervention may favorably influence biological age in both sexes during middle age and older.”

#5: Leukocyte telomere length, T cell composition and DNA methylation age

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.101293 

Authors: Brian H. Chen, Cara L. Carty, Masayuki Kimura, Jeremy D. Kark, Wei Chen, Shengxu Li, Tao Zhang, Charles Kooperberg, Daniel Levy, Themistocles Assimes, Devin Absher, Steve Horvath, Alexander P. Reiner, and Abraham Aviv

Institutions: National Institute on Aging, National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, George Washington University, Children’s National Medical Center, Rutgers State University of New Jersey, Hebrew University-Hadassah School of Public Health and Community Medicine, Tulane University, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Stanford University School of Medicine, HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology, University of California LA, and University of Washington

Quote: “The two key observations of this study are: (a) LTL is inversely correlated with EEAA; and (b) the LTL-EEAA correlation largely reflects the proportions of imputed naïve and memory CD8+ T cell populations in the leukocytes from which DNA was extracted.”

#4: DNA methylation GrimAge strongly predicts lifespan and healthspan

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.101684 

Authors: Ake T. Lu, Austin Quach, James G. Wilson, Alex P. Reiner, Abraham Aviv, Kenneth Raj, Lifang Hou, Andrea A. Baccarelli, Yun Li, James D. Stewart, Eric A. Whitsel, Themistocles L. Assimes, Luigi Ferrucci, and Steve Horvath

Institutions: University of California LA, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Rutgers State University of New Jersey, Public Health England, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Stanford University School of Medicine, VA Palo Alto Health Care System, and National Institutes of Health 

Quote: “We coin this DNAm-based biomarker of mortality “DNAm GrimAge” because high values are grim news, with regards to mortality/morbidity risk. Our comprehensive studies demonstrate that DNAm GrimAge stands out when it comes to associations with age-related conditions, clinical biomarkers, and computed tomography data.”

#3: Deep biomarkers of aging and longevity: from research to applications

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.102475 

Authors: Alex Zhavoronkov, Ricky Li, Candice Ma, and Polina Mamoshina

Institutions: Insilico Medicine, The Buck Institute for Research on Aging, The Biogerontology Research Foundation, Sinovation Ventures, Sinovation AI Institute, and Deep Longevity, Ltd

Quote: “Here we present the current state of development of the deep aging clocks in the context of the pharmaceutical research and development and clinical applications.”

#2: An epigenetic biomarker of aging for lifespan and healthspan

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.101414 

Authors: Morgan E. Levine, Ake T. Lu, Austin Quach, Brian H. Chen, Themistocles L. Assimes, Stefania Bandinelli, Lifang Hou, Andrea A. Baccarelli, James D. Stewart, Yun Li, Eric A. Whitsel, James G Wilson, Alex P Reiner, Abraham Aviv, Kurt Lohman, Yongmei Liu, Luigi Ferrucci, and Steve Horvath

Institutions: University of California LA, National Institute on Aging, Stanford University School of Medicine, Azienda Toscana Centro, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Rutgers State University of New Jersey, and Wake Forest School of Medicine

Quote: “Overall, this single epigenetic biomarker of aging is able to capture risks for an array of diverse outcomes across multiple tissues and cells, and provide insight into important pathways in aging.”

#1: Chemically induced reprogramming to reverse cellular aging

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.204896

Authors: Jae-Hyun Yang, Christopher A. Petty, Thomas Dixon-McDougall, Maria Vina Lopez, Alexander Tyshkovskiy, Sun Maybury-Lewis, Xiao Tian, Nabilah Ibrahim, Zhili Chen, Patrick T. Griffin, Matthew Arnold, Jien Li, Oswaldo A. Martinez, Alexander Behn, Ryan Rogers-Hammond, Suzanne Angeli, Vadim N. Gladyshev, and David A. Sinclair

Institutions: Harvard Medical School, University of Maine and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) 

Quote: “We identify six chemical cocktails, which, in less than a week and without compromising cellular identity, restore a youthful genome-wide transcript profile and reverse transcriptomic age. Thus, rejuvenation by age reversal can be achieved, not only by genetic, but also chemical means.”

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Aging is an open-access, traditional, peer-reviewed journal that has published high-impact papers in all fields of aging research since 2009. All papers are available to readers (at no cost and free of subscription barriers) in bi-monthly issues at Aging-US.com.

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Understanding the Mechanisms of Brain Aging and Longevity in Neurons

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In a new editorial, researchers discuss interconnected mechanisms of neuronal functionality and available tools to investigate neuronal aging and longevity. 

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Neurons, the building blocks of the nervous system, play a vital role in our body’s function and longevity. Unlike other cells, neurons do not undergo replicative aging. However, they are still susceptible to various sources of damage throughout life, leading to neuronal death. Understanding the mechanisms behind aging and neuronal death is crucial for uncovering the secrets of brain longevity and developing potential interventions to promote healthy aging.

In a new editorial, researchers Fang Fang, Robert Usselman and Renee Reijo Pera from University of Science and Technology of China, Florida Institute of Technology and McLaughlin Research Institute discussed new interconnected mechanisms of neuronal functionality and available tools to investigate neuronal aging and longevity. On December 13, 2023, their editorial was published in Aging’s Volume 15, Issue 23, entitled, “Aging and neuronal death.”

Neuronal Durability, Differentiation & Maintenance

Neurons, born during embryonic development, must function in the body for the entire lifespan of the organism. They are incredibly durable cells, but they are not immune to damage. Neurons require a significant amount of oxygen and glucose to carry out their activities, making them vulnerable to ischemia. Ischemia occurs when the blood supply to a particular tissue is restricted, leading to oxygen and nutrient deprivation. 

Neurons can accumulate damage over time, which may result in cell death linked to reactive oxygen species (ROS). Neurons may also die due to ion overload and swelling caused by the malfunction of voltage-gated ion channels on their membranes. High concentrations of neurotransmitters and the accumulation of misfolded proteins are also implicated in neuronal death, observed in various neurodegenerative diseases.

To gain insights into the factors that promote neuron differentiation and maintenance, researchers have developed innovative screening methods. For example, Cui and colleagues described a high-throughput screening method using a luciferase reporter construct inserted downstream of the endogenous tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) gene. They differentiated neurons from human pluripotent stem cells and monitored their activity over time. This approach allows for the modeling of cell survival and demise, providing valuable information about the factors that influence neuronal longevity.

The Role of ROS in Survival & Death

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are molecules produced during normal cellular metabolism. They play a crucial role in various biological processes but can also lead to oxidative stress when their levels exceed normal functional levels. Recent research has shed light on the distinction between global and local ROS balances and imbalances in cell phenotyping and mitochondrial energy management.

While global ROS homeostasis is essential for overall cellular health, ROS signaling pathways are driven locally by cellular microdomain-specific ROS production and degradation. Neurons have developed mechanisms to control ROS production and combat oxidative stress. For example, they express neurotrophic proteins that enhance mitochondrial activity, promoting the overall health of neurons.

“A sustained disruption of ROS balance can result in desirable enhanced cell signaling or undesirable oxidative stress, which can either improve function or diminish performance, respectively.”

Mechanisms for Longevity

Neurons have evolutionarily developed intricate mechanisms to maintain their longevity. They possess a distinct transcriptome signature that represses genes related to neural excitation and synaptic function. By preventing neurons from experiencing ion overload, this mechanism contributes to their long-term survival.

These brain cells have also developed specific DNA repair mechanisms to correct errors induced by active transcription. Neurons can turn off pro-apoptotic genes through alternative splicing, avoiding apoptosis and promoting long-term survival. These interconnected mechanisms work together to reduce the accumulation of aging-related damage in neurons. Understanding the fundamental mechanisms that enable the longevity of neurons is crucial for developing interventions that promote healthy brain aging. Researchers can use novel tools, including cell-based models, imaging techniques and animal studies, to investigate these mechanisms.

Conclusions

Neurons, although durable cells, are susceptible to various forms of damage that can lead to their demise. By studying the interplay between ROS, neuronal excitation, DNA repair, and apoptosis, researchers aim to uncover the secrets of brain longevity and develop strategies to mitigate the effects of aging on neurons. By understanding these mechanisms, researchers aim to develop interventions that promote healthy brain aging and enhance our overall understanding of brain health.

“Together, these findings suggest that neurons have evolved a set of intrinsically interconnected mechanisms to reduce long-term accumulations of aging-related damages. Disruption in these mechanisms may tip the neuron homeostasis off-balance and drive the neurons into the path of degeneration. We have a plethora of tools to probe the fundamental mechanisms with hopes of translation to clinical applications.”

Click here to read the full editorial published in Aging.

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Aging is an open-access, traditional, peer-reviewed journal that has published high-impact papers in all fields of aging research since 2009. All papers are available to readers (at no cost and free of subscription barriers) in bi-monthly issues at Aging-US.com.

Click here to subscribe to Aging publication updates.

For media inquiries, please contact media@impactjournals.com.

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Dr. Mikhail Blagosklonny on Rapamycin Longevity Series

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The world’s leading Rapamycin researcher, Dr. Mikhail Blagosklonny, has a long background in cancer research and one important discovery he made around 2000 was that Rapamycin slowed down senescent cancer cells in different ways. After that step-by-step, his interest in the longevity field increased and he developed the very interesting hyperfunction theory of aging.

He has made a huge contribution in moving the Rapamycin longevity field forward and his research papers have impacted many people. For example, the Rapamycin physician Alan Green who – thanks to these papers – took the decision in 2017 to start prescribing Rapamycin off label. Today, Alan Green has the biggest clinical experience in the area with more than 1,200 patients. A lot of other physicians have after that also taken these steps and one of those, for example, is physician Peter Attia.

Interview Table of Contents:

  • 02:32 Current situation and mission
  • 04:07 Why did Rapamycin not prevent his cancer?
  • 06:33 He develops a new type of cancer treatment
  • 08:32 Hyperfunction theory of age-related diseases
  • 10:38 mTOR drives age-related diseases
  • 13:00 Hyperfunction theory and the car analogy
  • 17:20 Difference between new and old version of hyperfunction theory
  • 19:58 Prediction based on hyperfunction theory
  • 21:38 Rapamycin seems to work at any age
  • 23:55 Rapamycin will not make you immortal
  • 26:21 Rapamycin delays lung cancer in mice
  • 27:44 Hyperfunction theory and hormesis
  • 29:13 Rapamycin combination with fasting or calorie restriction
  • 30:33 Rapamycin combination with Acarbose or low carb diet
  • 31:40 Rapamycin combination with exercise
  • 33:04 Exercise and longevity effect
  • 36:10 mTOR sweet spot
  • 38:44 Why do centenarians live a long life?
  • 40:36 Theory of accumulation of molecular damage
  • 44:04 Hyperfunction theory was initially rejected
  • 47:47 Rapamycin research that is missing
  • 51:44 Rapamycin and bacterial infection
  • 53:30 Rapamycin side effect on longevity dose regime
  • 55:50 Rapamycin and pseudo-diabetes
  • 58:51 Rapamycin combination of Acarbose or low carb diet
  • 1:00:09 Rapamycin and increase in lipids
  • 1:02:19 mTOR, mTORC1 and mTORC2
  • 1:05:22 Mikhail’s self-experimentation with Rapamycin
  • 1:10:41 Rapamycin and traditional medical care
  • 1:11:13 Rapamycin and unacceptable side effects
  • 1:14:26 Rapamycin and combinations to avoid
  • 1:16:55 Rapamycin and high protein intake
  • 1:18:08 Best time to start taking Rapamycin
  • 1:21:00 Does Rapamycin prevent cancer or not?
  • 1:23:52 Autophagy is a double-edged sword
  • 1:26:51 Important insight from his cancer
  • 1:28:38 Rapamycin rebound effect
  • 1:30:24 Difference between theory and practice
  • 1:32:45 Mikhail’s cancer and cancer treatment
  • 1:37:36 Rapamycin and danger

Dr. Blagosklonny’s Links:

Rapamycin resources:

Disclaimer from host Krister Kauppi:

The podcast is for general information and educational purposes only and is not medical advice for you or others. The use of information and materials linked to the podcast is at the users own risk. Always consult your physician with anything you do regarding your health or medical condition.

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Does A Link Exist Between Longevity, Aging and Heart Rate Parameters?

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Researchers investigated the relationship between familial longevity, chronological age and heart rate parameters, including heart rate variability and 24-h rhythms.

ecg ekg screen, heart rate
Closeup view of an ECG/EKG display

The Trending With Impact series highlights Aging publications (listed as “Aging (Albany NY)” by Medline/PubMed and “Aging-US” by Web of Science) that attract higher visibility among readers around the world online, in the news, and on social media—beyond normal readership levels. Look for future science news about the latest trending publications here, and at Aging-US.com.

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A normal resting heart rate (HR) for adults should be anywhere between 60 and 100 beats per minute. A low resting heart rate has been associated with better overall health and fitness. Crosswise, a higher resting heart rate appears to have a strong correlation with mortality. Heart rate variability (HRV), the beat-to-beat changes in heart rate, is indicative of the heart’s ability to respond to changes in physical and emotional stress. Low HRV has been shown to be a risk factor for heart disease, while high HRV has been associated with good heart health. Although HR and HRV are frequently studied, these parameters are not often investigated continuously or over long periods of time in healthy, middle-aged individuals.

“Parameters of HR and HRV are often investigated during a short electrocardiogram (ECG) measurement at the study center or in the hospital, but not continuously over a longer period while individuals continue with their daily lives.”

The Study

In a new study, researchers Janneke M. Wiersema, Annelies E.P. Kamphuis, Jos H.T. Rohling, Laura Kervezee, Abimbola A. Akintola, Steffy W. Jansen, P. Eline Slagboom, Diana van Heemst, and Evie van der Spoel from Leiden University Medical Center and Catharina Hospital used continuous ambulatory ECG measurements collected over a period of 24 to 90 hours to investigate the relationship between heart rate parameters and familial longevity and chronological age. On August 16, 2022, their research paper was published in Aging’s Volume 14, Issue 18, and entitled, “The association between continuous ambulatory heart rate, heart rate variability, and 24-h rhythms of heart rate with familial longevity and aging.”

“This is one of the first studies to look at the relationship between parameters of HR, HRV, and 24-h rhythms in HR based on continuous ambulatory ECG measurements over a period of several days with both familial longevity and chronological age in a single design.”

The majority of the recruited study participants were middle-aged and from the Leiden Longevity Study (LLS): 37 offspring of long-lived families between 52 and 83 years old, and 36 of their partners/spouses of the same age range. In addition, the researchers recruited 35 younger individuals from the Switchbox Leiden Study between 18 and 40 years old. All study participants were asked to wear a small heart rate monitor, the Equivital EQ02 life monitor (EQ02), for 24 to 90 hours. They were then instructed to carry on with their daily lives and regular routines.

Results & Conclusion

After data cleaning and statistical analyses, no association between heart rate parameters and familial longevity was found. However, middle-aged participants had lower 24-hour heart rates (average and maximum HR, not minimum HR), lower amplitudes, and earlier trough and peak times than the young participants. During long-term EQ02 recordings, middle-aged participants showed a less optimal HRV in both the sleep and awake periods. The researchers believe this might indicate that older hearts are less adaptable than those in the young.

“This could be a first indication of deteriorated cardiovascular health in middle-aged individuals.”

The researchers were forthcoming about the limitations of this study. The study sample was relatively small, there was no standardization of daily activities among the participants, and any potential medications used by the younger participants were not adjusted for (as they were for the middle-aged participants). Despite these limitations, this study provides novel insight into heart rate parameters over longer periods of time and in relation to familial longevity and chronological age.

“In our study, we can conclude that resting HR during the sleep period is not associated with familial longevity or chronological age. This study showed that continuous ambulatory ECG measurements can be used to obtain adequate information on HR, HRV and 24-h rhythms in HR, which was also showed by others [50]. However, the small sample size, due to the poor quality of a part of the data, is a limitation of this study and should be improved in future studies. Furthermore, we suggest for future research to control for exercise and day planning between groups. Lastly we suggest to include an additional group with participants of an older age than the middle-aged group, and to investigate the relation between health status and HR parameters.”

Click here to read the full research paper published by Aging.

AGING (AGING-US) VIDEOS: YouTube | LabTube | Aging-US.com

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Aging is an open-access journal that publishes research papers bi-monthly in all fields of aging research. These papers are available at no cost to readers on Aging-us.com. Open-access journals have the power to benefit humanity from the inside out by rapidly disseminating information that may be freely shared with researchers, colleagues, family, and friends around the world.

For media inquiries, please contact media@impactjournals.com.

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Aging’s Top 10 Most-Viewed Papers in 2021

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Aging's Top 10 papers of 2021

Read the 10 most-viewed papers on Aging-US.com of 2021.

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#10: Iron: an underrated factor in aging

Author: Dennis Mangan

Institution: MTOR LLC

Quote: “Blocking iron absorption through drugs or natural products extends lifespan. Many life-extending interventions, such as rapamycin, calorie restriction, and old plasma dilution can be explained by the effects they have on iron absorption, excretion, and metabolism.”

#9: Reversal of cognitive decline: A novel therapeutic program

Author: Dale E. Bredesen

Institutions: University of California Los Angeles and Buck Institute for Research on Aging

Quote: “This report describes a novel, comprehensive, and personalized therapeutic program that is based on the underlying pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease, and which involves multiple modalities designed to achieve metabolic enhancement for neurodegeneration (MEND).”

#8: Shorter telomere lengths in patients with severe COVID-19 disease

Authors: Raul Sanchez-Vazquez, Ana Guío-Carrión, Antonio Zapatero-Gaviria, Paula Martínez, and Maria A. Blasco

Institutions: Spanish National Cancer Research Center – CNIO and Field Hospital COVID-19, IFEMA

Quote: “The incidence of severe manifestations of COVID-19 increases with age with older patients showing the highest mortality, suggesting that molecular pathways underlying aging contribute to the severity of COVID-19. One mechanism of aging is the progressive shortening of telomeres, which are protective structures at chromosome ends.”

#7: Hyperbaric oxygen therapy alleviates vascular dysfunction and amyloid burden in an Alzheimer’s disease mouse model and in elderly patients

Authors: Ronit Shapira, Amos Gdalyahu, Irit Gottfried, Efrat Sasson, Amir Hadanny, Shai Efrati, Pablo Blinder, and Uri Ashery 

Institutions: Tel Aviv University and Assaf Harofeh Medical Center

Quote: “Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) is in clinical use for a wide range of medical conditions. In the current study, we exposed 5XFAD mice, a well-studied AD model that presents impaired cognitive abilities, to HBOT and then investigated the therapeutical effects using two-photon live animal imaging, behavioral tasks, and biochemical and histological analysis.”

#6: Fighting the storm: could novel anti-TNFα and anti-IL-6 C. sativa cultivars tame cytokine storm in COVID-19?

Authors: Anna Kovalchuk, Bo Wang, Dongping Li, Rocio Rodriguez-Juarez, Slava Ilnytskyy, Igor Kovalchuk, and Olga Kovalchuk

Institutions: Pathway Research Inc., University of Calgary and University of Lethbridge

Quote: “Cannabis sativa has been proposed to modulate gene expression and inflammation and is under investigation for several potential therapeutic applications against autoinflammatory diseases and cancer. Here, we hypothesized that the extracts of novel C. sativa cultivars may be used to downregulate the expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines and pathways involved in inflammation and fibrosis.”

#5: Examining sleep deficiency and disturbance and their risk for incident dementia and all-cause mortality in older adults across 5 years in the United States

Authors: Rebecca Robbins, Stuart F. Quan, Matthew D. Weaver, Gregory Bormes, Laura K. Barger, and Charles A. Czeisler

Institutions: Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School and Boston College

Quote: “Sleep disturbance and deficiency are common among older adults and have been linked with dementia and all-cause mortality. Using nationally representative data, we examine the relationship between sleep disturbance and deficiency and their risk for incident dementia and all-cause mortality among older adults.”

#4: Rejuvant®, a potential life-extending compound formulation with alpha-ketoglutarate and vitamins, conferred an average 8 year reduction in biological aging, after an average of 7 months of use, in the TruAge DNA methylation test

Authors: Oleksandr Demidenko, Diogo Barardo, Valery Budovskii, Robb Finnemore, Francis R. Palmer III, Brian K. Kennedy, and Yelena V. Budovskaya

Institutions: TruMe Inc., National University Singapore, Ponce de Leon Health, National University Health System Singapore, and Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences, A*STAR

Quote: “Instead, aging biomarkers, such as DNA methylation (DNAm) clocks, have been developed to monitor biological age. Herein we report a retrospective analysis of DNA methylation age in 42 individuals taking Rejuvant®, an alpha-ketoglutarate based formulation, for an average period of 7 months.”

#3: Aging and rejuvenation – a modular epigenome model

Authors: Priscila Chiavellini, Martina Canatelli-Mallat, Marianne Lehmann, Maria D. Gallardo, Claudia B. Herenu, Jose L. Cordeiro, James Clement, and Rodolfo G. Goya

Institutions: National University of La Plata, National University of Cordoba, World Academy of Art and Science (WAAS), and Betterhumans Inc.

Quote: “The view of aging has evolved in parallel with the advances in biomedical sciences. Long considered as an irreversible process where interventions were only aimed at slowing down its progression, breakthrough discoveries like animal cloning and cell reprogramming have deeply changed our understanding of postnatal development, giving rise to the emerging view that the epigenome is the driver of aging.”

#2: Potential reversal of epigenetic age using a diet and lifestyle intervention: a pilot randomized clinical trial

Authors: Kara N. Fitzgerald, Romilly Hodges, Douglas Hanes, Emily Stack, David Cheishvili, Moshe Szyf, Janine Henkel, Melissa W. Twedt, Despina Giannopoulou, Josette Herdell, Sally Logan, and Ryan Bradley

Institutions: Institute for Functional Medicine, American Nutrition Association, National University of Natural Medicine, Ariel University, McGill University, and University of California San Diego

Quote: “Manipulations to slow biological aging and extend healthspan are of interest given the societal and healthcare costs of our aging population. Herein we report on a randomized controlled clinical trial conducted among 43 healthy adult males between the ages of 50-72.”

#1: Hyperbaric oxygen therapy increases telomere length and decreases immunosenescence in isolated blood cells: a prospective trial

Authors: Yafit Hachmo, Amir Hadanny, Ramzia Abu Hamed, Malka Daniel-Kotovsky, Merav Catalogna, Gregory Fishlev, Erez Lang, Nir Polak, Keren Doenyas, Mony Friedman, Yonatan Zemel, Yair Bechor, and Shai Efrati

Institutions: Shamir Medical Center, Tel Aviv University and Bar Ilan University

Quote: “At the cellular level, two key hallmarks of the aging process include telomere length (TL) shortening and cellular senescence. Repeated intermittent hyperoxic exposures, using certain hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) protocols, can induce regenerative effects which normally occur during hypoxia. The aim of the current study was to evaluate whether HBOT affects TL and senescent cell concentrations in a normal, non-pathological, aging adult population.”

Click here to read the latest papers published by Aging.

AGING (AGING-US) VIDEOS: YouTube | LabTube | Aging-US.com

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Aging (Aging-US) is an open-access journal that publishes research papers bi-monthly in all fields of aging research. These papers are available to read at no cost to readers on Aging-us.com. Open-access journals offer information that has the potential to benefit our societies from the inside out and may be shared with friends, neighbors, colleagues, and other researchers, far and wide.

For media inquiries, please contact media@impactjournals.com.

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Behind the Study: Second Interventions in Aging Conference

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Following the Second Interventions in Aging Conference, meeting organizers Dr. Brian Kennedy and Dr. Linda Partridge discuss their overview of the meeting proceedings that was published by Aging in 2017, entitled, “2nd interventions in aging conference.”

Researchers explain their studies that were published in Aging
Researchers explain their studies that were published in Aging

Behind the Study is a series of transcribed videos from researchers elaborating on their recent oncology-focused studies published by Aging. Visit the Aging YouTube channel for more insights from outstanding authors.

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Dr. Brian Kennedy

I’m Brian Kennedy, I’m a professor at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging and a visiting professor at National University of Singapore.

Dr. Linda Partridge

And I’m Linda Partridge and I’m Director at the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Aging in Cologne, Germany. And also Director of the Institute for Healthy Aging at University College London.

So, Brian, how did you get into aging research?

Dr. Brian Kennedy

The funny thing was when I went to graduate school, I’d worked in yeast as an undergraduate, and I decided that I was not going to work in yeast anymore. But the more I realized about how difficult it was to work in mice, the more I wanted to work in yeast. And so there was another graduate student and I that wanted to go to Lenny Guarente‘s lab, and we decided to work in yeast and we wanted to figure out something completely crazy to do.

And we came up with two ideas: One was yeast apoptosis, which was a little weird for a single-celled organism and the other was aging. And we decided that aging was the least-

Dr. Linda Partridge

Mr. Nobel Prize.

Dr. Brian Kennedy

It’s true. We decided that aging was the least implausible of the two. And so we did that, but there’s a whole field on yeast apoptosis now too, so I guess we would have been okay. How about you?

Dr. Linda Partridge

Well, I got into it crabwise, really, because I started out life as an evolutionary biologist. So from the evolution point of view, it’s a completely weird trait because development produces a wonderfully functioning young organism and then it all goes to hell. You’d think it would be a lot easier to maintain it and to produce it in the first place. So I became very interested in how aging evolves and it is indeed really peculiar it’s almost certainly given what we’ve learned recently about the mechanisms of aging, actually bad effects in old age of genes that are good in the young. So I think that’s pretty interesting if you think about it as genes driving the old organism too hard to do the kinds of things that young organisms can do very well. I think it makes quite an easier process to think about, put it that way.

Dr. Brian Kennedy

And what we started the puzzle, both of us have worked on this a lot is, you know we’ve been trying to show that the pathways that are modulating aging are conserved. And it’s always kind of a puzzle that there’s so much conservation if this is a trait that evolution never really cared about that much. So it’s… I’ve never quite got that satisfied in my mind. What do you think about that?

Dr. Linda Partridge

I guess what I think is that the processes that you and other people have come up with, there are ones that do drive good things in young organisms. So the things that make for growth, for reproduction, for strong immune responses, for effective muscles and movement, all the things that young organisms have to do. But they seem to be set at too higher level when you get old, and I think that way it is actually quite easy to understand why it’s evolutionarily conserved because presumably the kinds of genes that control growth and reproduction evolve very early on.

Dr. Brian Kennedy

I agree. I actually argue with people that aging is going to be easier to modify than disease. So I think it’s going to be easier to keep people healthy than it is to wait until they get sick and try to treat them and make them better. I think of it as very simplistically as a state of homeostasis versus disequilibrium, you know, while you’re still relatively healthy, it’s fairly easy to tap into these pathways … relatively easy to tap into these pathways … and try to maintain that. But once you get into a state of disequilibrium, which I would call chronic disease of one sort or another, then you’ve got a problem. You’re kind of fighting entropy at that point and trying to put things back together again is very difficult.

Dr. Linda Partridge

Yes, it’s very interesting talking to colleagues in other areas about that idea because one gets a kind of ‘yuck’ response. So does that mean that humans are going to have to take pills when they’re healthy to prevent disease? You can point out that people do that already around statin and aspirin and things that lower high blood pressure. None of these are dealing with disease states, they’re in anticipation of possible disease states and trying to prevent them. So there’s plenty of taking pills to prevent things already, but for some reason, when you talk about it as a likely outcome of research into aging, there’s quite often a kickback, even from other scientists.

Dr. Brian Kennedy

I think most of the things we take, you know that are really working effectively really are aging drugs as much as they’re disease drugs. So you mentioned aspirin, but not just that I mean, look at statins, look at beta- blockers, look at early diabetes drugs like Metformin. All of them are targeting early risk factors for chronic disease, and I kind of feel like these risk factors are right at the interface between aging and disease itself.

Dr. Linda Partridge

They’re right on the nexus of the way in which aging acts as a risk factor for disease, and I think the other thing about them is that it’s quite clear that they’re turning out to have off-licence effects. Most of these drugs have a much broader therapeutic range than they’re generally used for. Which is exactly what you’d expect if they’re in there in that nexus between aging and disease.

Dr. Brian Kennedy

So what’s exciting to you now in your research? Where are you going in the next five years?

Dr. Linda Partridge

Well, funnily enough, I’m very much into drugs. So we’ve been doing quite a lot of drug work with drosophila and based exactly on this idea that mechanisms of aging are conserved. We’re starting to take a number of these drugs into mice, but also starting to do some big database stuff with humans, looking at particular pathways that have come up in the model organisms and asking whether SNPs associated with those pathways in humans ones that are either likely to increase the activity of the pathways concerned or decrease it or associated with particular types of disease risk.

So one can do this process called Mendelian randomization, which in theory gets rid of a lot of the effects of genetic background and focuses on a particular SNP. Now I think there’s enough data coming in on humans that we can really start to do the population genetics on these pathways, and I’m terribly excited by that.

What about you?

Dr. Brian Kennedy

Well, I have two goals right now. One is to try to go back to the simple organisms and really take a systems approach and try to take a yeast cell for example, and be able to describe all the features of aging, not just one gene at a time. And so we’re working a lot in sort of systems biology approaches there, but I think the main goal I have is-

Dr. Linda Partridge

Do you mean you’re looking at gene combinations or how are you doing it?

Dr. Brian Kennedy

Yes. Gene combinations, but also working with collaborators to look at how signaling pathways change with age to start to really understand longitudinal processes in a yeast cell. So the idea is to combine that with the genetic data and try to put the puzzle together.

Dr. Linda Partridge

I think that’s interesting.

Dr. Brian Kennedy

My main goal really is to get human and to start testing interventions in humans because I think we have enough knowledge now that we have things that are likely to work and we have reasonable candidate biomarkers, none of which are completely validated, but I feel good about some of them. And if you put that together, I kind of see it as a lock and key fit. You know we’ve got a bunch of interventions which are potential keys, and we’ve got a bunch of biomarkers which are potential locks, and we have to figure out which keys fit in which locks. So I’m looking at strategies to really test that in humans, either through academic research or through private companies.

Dr. Linda Partridge

So do you think companies are going to be interested in doing the kind of research that would target more than one disease, or do you think the way in is going to be to go for particular disease states? How do you think we should do it, operationally?

Dr. Brian Kennedy

I’d much rather target healthy aging or health span or prevention of multiple diseases. And I think there are companies that are thinking about that now, but they’re still relatively small generally. I think PhRMA kind of walks up to that ledge and looks over and then backs up. But eventually I think that it’s going to happen. I think what we need is some evidence that we can really modulates aging pathways. And that’s where this biomarker strategy or the kinds of things that [inaudible] is doing to get multiple disease parameters simultaneously in clinical trials. Those kinds of things, I think, are you just need a couple of success stories and then people start to get it. So I’m agnostic as to whether it’s done academically or privately, I just want to make it happen and so you know.

Dr. Linda Partridge

So what do you think about… We know so much from the animal studies about rapamycin now we probably know more about that than any other drug in the context of aging. Do you think there are going to be more clinical trials with rapamycin for off-license applications? Do you think it would be a trial for Alzheimer’s for instance?

Dr. Brian Kennedy

You know, there’ve been a lot of talk about trials for Alzheimer’s and I don’t think one has gotten started yet. But I think you’re going to start to see more and more of this. Then of course, there’s a lot of research to try to figure out how to either dose rapamycin or everolimus, which is the first generation of that rapalog in a way that doesn’t have the toxicity or to develop new drugs that have the efficacy without the toxicity. So I think both of those approaches are moving forward.

Novartis just spun off a small company to try to do this, and so I think that there’s renewed interest in trying to inhibit mTOR, but there’s still a lot of open questions about how it’s going to be best to do that. But having said that the number of potential indications, I mean, not to mention aging itself is so large that there’s clearly value into doing this successfully. So I’m pretty excited about where that’s going to go. I think that’s only one of a bunch of pathways though and you’re looking for new drugs and new pathways, and I think we’re going to find that there are a lot of different potential entry points for intervention in aging as we go forward.

Dr. Linda Partridge

I think it’s a time of great excitement. I just hope that some of the human trials get done while I’m still active. I’d love to see some successes with people.

Dr. Brian Kennedy

But you will be active for at least 20 more years, so …

Dr. Linda Partridge

Lots longer if somebody comes up with a pill.

Dr. Brian Kennedy

You know, that’s why I think doing this Fusion Conference has been so fun. You know, we’ve done two of these now in Cancun, and the idea is to bring different groups of people to look at different strategies for interventions in aging. I think that the conferences are relatively small, but we try to recruit a wide range of people. So we get people discussing different kinds of ideas that don’t normally talk. That’s what I think the strength of it is what do you think?

Dr. Linda Partridge

I agree with that. I really like the format of those conferences because they have a low upper limit on the number of delegates deliberately. So that most people can give talks or posters and there’s plenty of time for discussion. And what I noticed at those meetings correspondingly is that the discussion is very intense. Almost everybody talks to everybody else at some point during the meeting. So there’s real interchange of ideas as you say, between people who we deliberately invite from different areas, and I think it’s been a great success and it’s also been very nice to see it going more and more translational. There is more and more interest in mechanisms that are going to give rise to preventative measures rather than just the basic research, which has been fantastic and was necessary to get anywhere. But people really are trying to push it into helping people now. And I find that very exciting. So yes, I think meetings are great.

Dr. Brian Kennedy

Yes, I know, and I think as we go forward with these meetings, we’ll probably continue to try to emphasize these human intervention studies as much as possible.

Dr. Linda Partridge

I think that’s very much a specialty of that meeting.

Dr. Brian Kennedy

Because there are other meetings that really focus on the basic biology of aging, but this is really trying to get at the next step.

Dr. Linda Partridge

Yeah. Yeah. It’s particularly good when we can get basic scientists and clinicians together, I think. And also people from the various companies who might do something about the discoveries. I think it’s a very good mix of people that way.

Dr. Brian Kennedy

I can’t, you know, in my better moments, I think that we’re almost right at a tipping point where we’re going to push over this wall and then all of a sudden everybody’s going to be saying, oh, targeting aging is common sense in 10 years. I still have the bad moments where I feel like the little soldier walking into the wall and never go anywhere too.

Dr. Linda Partridge

Yes. I fluctuate between those two points as well, but I find myself feeling optimistic more and more often seeing what’s happening.

Dr. Brian Kennedy

That’s good. Well, it’ll be exciting to see where the field goes moving forward…

Dr. Linda Partridge

Yeah, indeed. Indeed.

Click here to read the full meeting report, published by Aging.

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Aging is an open-access journal that publishes research papers monthly in all fields of aging research and other topics. These papers are available to read at no cost to readers on Aging-us.com. Open-access journals offer information that has the potential to benefit our societies from the inside out and may be shared with friends, neighbors, colleagues, and other researchers, far and wide.

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TRENDING WITH IMPACT: EFFECTS OF EXERCISE ON AGING

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Researchers surveyed available literature related to exercise and its association with longevity and aging. This extensive review expands on exercise as a lifestyle intervention and its ability to counteract cellular and tissue aging.

Figure 4. Conceptual overview. Created in BioRender.

The Trending with Impact series highlights Aging publications that attract higher visibility among readers around the world online, in the news, and on social media—beyond normal readership levels. Look for future science news about the latest trending publications here, and at Aging-US.com.

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Regular physical exercise provides benefits for both the body and mind, but how exactly does this healthy habit benefit our cells, signaling pathways, organs, and even bones? Furthermore, how can we employ regular exercise as part of an anti-aging strategy to extend our healthspan and lifespan?

Two researchers from the Beta Cell Aging Lab at Harvard Medical School authored a recent review paper which breaks down the currently available research on this very topic, with a special focus on pancreatic beta-cells and Type 2 diabetes. The authors detailed the recorded effects of exercise at systemic and cellular levels, its effects on each of the hallmarks of aging, and a potential molecular regulatory node that may integrate those effects. This review was published in May of 2021 by Aging, and entitled: “Effects of exercise on cellular and tissue aging.”

THE NINE HALLMARKS OF AGING

With age, cellular functions and systems in the human body progressively decline and destabilize, which eventually leads to disease and all-cause mortality. There are nine hallmarks of aging, which are classified as either primary, secondary, or integrative: genomic instability, telomere attrition, epigenetic alterations, loss of proteostasis, deregulated nutrient-sensing, mitochondrial dysfunction, cellular senescence, stem cell exhaustion, and altered intercellular communication. 

“Exercise is a promising lifestyle intervention that has shown antiaging effects by extending lifespan and healthspan through decreasing the nine hallmarks of aging and age-associated inflammation.” 

The researchers in this review explain that exercise is capable of counteracting each of these hallmarks of aging at systematic and cellular levels. They used publicly available research to cite and discuss the effects of exercise in each hallmark of aging in clear and thorough detail. The purpose of this article is to summarize this review, though readers are highly encouraged to read the full paper for deeper insights. 

“The literature was surveyed on MEDLINE through freely accessible PubMed as a search engine for the terms: ‘exercise’, ‘longevity’ and ‘aging’; the most relevant studies were included as they related to the 9 hallmarks of aging.”

AMPK AS A CENTRAL REGULATOR

“In summary, exercise attenuates all hallmarks of aging through different molecular pathways and effectors that seem independent and disconnected.” 

Given that exercise regulates each of these hallmarks individually, the researchers hypothesize that there must exist some kind of molecular regulatory node(s) capable of coordinating these responses. They propose that the 5’ adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase (AMPK) enzyme/protein could play this role.

“In summary, AMPK activation through exercise can impact all the hallmarks of aging through different signaling pathways as summarized in Figure 2 and can act as a signaling node capable of orchestrating many of the effects of exercise on the health span of different tissues and organs.”

EXERCISE AND TYPE 2 DIABETES

The researchers also discuss the effects of exercise on Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D). 

“In summary, exercise activates molecular signals that can bypass defects in insulin signaling in skeletal muscle and increase skeletal muscle mitochondria, which are associated with improved insulin sensitivity in skeletal muscle and therefore improve aging-associated effects of T2D.”

Figure 1. Effects of exercise upon the aging process of different organs and systems. Created in BioRender.
Figure 1. Effects of exercise upon the aging process of different organs and systems. Created in BioRender.

CONCLUSION

“We propose that future studies should address the effects of exercise on tissues which are not considered its direct targets but do show accelerated aging in T2D, such as pancreatic β-cells. In these, the role of AMPK and its physiological control will become especially significant as exercise is considered a cellular antiaging strategy.”

Click here to read the full review, published by Aging.

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Aging is an open-access journal that publishes research papers monthly in all fields of aging research and other topics. These papers are available to read at no cost to readers on Aging-us.com. Open-access journals offer information that has the potential to benefit our societies from the inside out and may be shared with friends, neighbors, colleagues, and other researchers, far and wide.

For media inquiries, please contact media@impactjournals.com.

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Complex Drug Screenings Show Anti-Aging Potential in Natural Compounds

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In an effort to mimic metformin and rapamycin, researchers used powerful screening methods to analyze over 800 natural compounds to assess their anti-aging potential and safety profile.

Modern Medical Research Laboratory. Scientific Lab, Drug Engineering Center Full of High-Tech Equipment, Computer Screen Showing DNA concept, Technology for Vaccine Development.

The Top-Performer series highlights papers published by Aging that have generated a high Altmetric attention score. Altmetric scores, located at the top-left of trending Aging papers, provide an at-a-glance indication of the volume and type of online attention the research has received.

Read Aging’s Top 100 Altmetric papers.

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By 2030, one in five Americans will age over 65 years old in the United States. As a society, an even larger aging population is fast on our heels. With age comes wisdom, and unfortunately, so does a number of costly and devastating diseases, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and Type II diabetes.

Researchers are currently working to mitigate the upcoming burden for this expanding population by developing anti-aging and anti-cancer drugs, and other geroprotective interventions that could extend healthspan, lower disease rates, and maintain productivity. However, the slow and expensive process of gaining approval for new potential pharmaceutical and nutraceutical interventions is historically arduous and prone to failure—especially when it comes to anti-aging and longevity research.

“Even if successful, to be used preventatively, anti-aging drugs face extraordinarily high safety and efficacy standards for approval [9].”

In 2017, researchers from the United States’ Insilico Medicine, Inc. and Life Extension, the United Kingdom’s Biogerontology Research Foundation, Canada’s Queen’s University, and Russia’s Russian Academy of Sciences, worked together to test a strategy to accelerate the development of safe, wide-scale anti-aging nutraceuticals. Their study was published in Aging’s Volume 9, Issue 11, and entitled, “Towards natural mimetics of metformin and rapamycin.” To date, this top-performing research paper has generated an Altmetric Attention score of 127.

Metformin and Rapamycin

“One strategy to hasten the process has been the repurposing of existing, FDA-approved drugs that show off-label anti-cancer and anti-aging potential [10,11], and at the top of that list are metformin and rapamycin, two drugs that mimic caloric restriction [12].”

Metformin and rapamycin have already been FDA approved for use in renal transplants, Type II diabetes, and metabolic syndrome. These two drugs are both mTOR inhibitors which, through numerous research studies, have shown pleiotropic effects exhibiting multiple anti-aging, anticancer, and anti-cardiovascular disease benefits. However, some adverse side effects pertaining to extended use have made it so these two interventions (used alone) are unable to move forward for wide-scale preventative use.

“Taken together, rapamycin and metformin are promising candidates for life and healthspan extension; however, concerns of adverse side effects have hampered their widescale adoption for this purpose.”

Although there are some adverse side effects, the chemical structures of metformin and rapamycin should not be ignored. These two drugs can be analyzed, and even mimicked, to develop new, safer interventions to prevent and treat age-related diseases. The researchers in this study initiated an effort to identify nutraceuticals as safe, natural alternatives to metformin and rapamycin drugs. 

“Nutraceuticals have received considerable attention in recent years for potential roles in preventing or treating a number of age-related diseases [88].”

The Study

“Our work is done entirely in silico and entails the use of metformin and rapamycin transcriptional and signaling pathway activation signatures to screen for matches amongst natural compounds.” 

Test compounds were selected based on the natural compounds listed in the UNPD and Library of Integrated Network‐based Cellular Signatures (LINCS) datasets. Gene‐ and pathway‐level signatures of metformin and rapamycin were mapped and screened for matches against the over 800 natural compounds chosen. The team used conventional statistical methods, pathway scoring-based methods, and training of deep neural networks for signature recognition. Researchers applied several bioinformatic approaches and deep learning methods, including the Oncofinder, Geroscope, and in silico Pathway Activation Network Decomposition Analysis (iPANDA). The iPANDA extracts robust, biologically relevant pathway activation signatures from the data. 

“In an application of these methods, we focused on mimicry of metformin and rapamycin, seeking nutraceuticals that could preserve their anti-aging and disease-preventive potential while being better suited for wide-scale prophylactic use.”

Results and Conclusion

“The analysis revealed many novel candidate metformin and rapamycin mimetics, including allantoin and ginsenoside (metformin), epigallocatechin gallate and isoliquiritigenin (rapamycin), and withaferin A (both). Four relatively unexplored compounds also scored well with rapamycin.”  

Their initial list of over 800 natural compounds was condensed to a shortlist of candidate nutraceuticals that showed similarity to metformin and rapamycin and had low adverse effects. 

“This work revealed promising candidates for future experimental validation while demonstrating the applications of powerful screening methods for this and similar endeavors.”

Click here to read the full research paper, published by Aging.

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Aging is an open-access journal that publishes research papers monthly in all fields of aging research and other topics. These papers are available to read at no cost to readers on Aging-us.com. Open-access journals offer information that has the potential to benefit our societies from the inside out and may be shared with friends, neighbors, colleagues, and other researchers, far and wide.

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