New study suggests common assumption about aging could be wrong
Inflammaging is a chronic, low-grade form of inflammation that develops with advancing age. Inflammation protects the body from injury or infection.
Chronic inflammation is thought to speed up the ageing process and contribute to various health conditions such as Alzheimer's disease, arthritis, cancer, heart disease, and Type 2 diabetes,
Researchers have long believed that most older people will suffer from inflammageing as they age.
However the study, published in Nature Age this week, found that people in nonindustrialized areas experience inflammation differently than those in urban areas and there may be another cause behind it.
Researchers compared the lives of two indigenous, nonindustrialized populations - the Tsimane from the Bolivian Amazon and the Orang Asli from Peninsular Malaysia - with two groups from Italy and Singapore. Researchers compared blood samples from about 2,800 adults between 18 and 95 in the four groups.
They found that chronic inflammation may not be linked explicitly to ageing, but rather that diet, lifestyle and environmental factors are more significant factors than previously thought.
The study also showed that inflammation in the nonindustrialized groups did not appear to increase as subjects got older.
Alan Cohen, associate professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University and co-author of the study, said the findings suggest inflammation is 'more complex than we currently understand.'
'The Tsimane and Orang Asli differ from us in all these ways,' he told The Independent. 'The insight of our study is not to say we need to be more active, but to challenge the idea that we understand biology well and can micromanage it.
'So it's a warning – don't follow the latest trends of eating foods specifically to reduce inflammation, or whatever else the trend of the week may be.'
However, other experts shared a word of caution before jumping to conclusions from the study.
Vishwa Deep Dixit, director of the Yale Center for Research on Aging, told the New York Times it's not surprising that people less exposed to pollution would see lower rates of chronic disease. The findings should lead to valuable discussion but would need further study 'before we rewrite the inflammaging narrative,' professor of pharmacology at the University of Virginia School of Medicine Bimal Desai added.
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WIRED
3 hours ago
- WIRED
How to Travel to the Most Remote Office on Earth
Jul 2, 2025 9:00 AM Commuting to Concordia research station in Antarctica takes days—it's more remote than the International Space Station. Here's how to get there. Photograph: ESA/IPEV/PNRA - B. Healey In November 2023, Jessica Studer, a 33-year-old research medical doctor and professional pianist from Bremgarten, Switzerland, prepared for her trip to Antarctica's Concordia research station. Most work trips require a flight and a few nights in a hotel; hers would involve several days of travel and a year at the most remote outpost in the world. Very few people have experience preparing for such an extreme journey. Concordia sits at 10,600 feet above sea level, with winter temperatures plummeting to minus 112 degrees Fahrenheit. It's accessible only by aircraft during the summer months, from November to February, and the station is more isolated than the International Space Station, 240 miles above Earth's surface. Studer spent a full year at the station conducting biomedical research for the European Space Agency. Concordia, operated by the French Polar Institute and Italy's National Antarctic Research Program, serves in part as a simulation of a space station. During her time there, Struder studied the effects of isolation and confinement on herself and her crewmates to better understand what could happen to astronauts on long deep-space missions. WIRED spoke with Studer about how she got to her very remote office. Concordia research station, which consists of two towers connected by a tunnel, can serve as a simulation of a space station. Photograph: ESA/IPEV/PNRA - B. Healey The journey started with a train to Paris, arriving at Gare de Lyon. I decided to take an Uber to the airport. That was super interesting, because Uber drivers always like to chat, and when you're sitting in the car and say 'I'm going to Antarctica for a year' they just look at you, with the three backpacks, like, You're not serious, right? At the Paris airport, I met some of the French crew for the first time. We flew to Christchurch, New Zealand, (with a layover in Singapore) and that's when I really connected with the other two women going to Antarctica. We sat next to each other, discussing things like, 'How is it going to be?' 'What did you pack?' 'Did you take more clothes than they're giving us?' 'Do you have special equipment?' It was a chat about everyone's strategies, what we did, what we had, if we took medical supplies from the lab. In the morning, we met in front of our hotel in Christchurch and took some small buses. The crew helped me carry my bags because I was still downloading data from my cloud to ensure I'd have it in Antarctica. So there I was, ready to go to the airport, still downloading. I was super stressed. At the airport, every bag is checked. They make sure you don't have more kilograms than allowed, as that's an issue for the plane. They also ensure you don't have anything not allowed in Antarctica, like seeds, food, or plants. Basically, they want to make sure the continent stays as it is. The plane is a Hercules C-130, super impressive. You arrive on this little bus, and you see this monstrous plane, and you enter through the back. Then you sit next to each other in these longitudinal seats. And then it's departure for a seven-hour trip without toilets, with a little snack, a lot of sound around you—just sitting until you see, for the first time, a bit of Antarctica. Concordia is more isolated than the International Space Station, 240 miles above Earth's surface. Photograph: ESA/IPEV/PNRA - A. Kumar You see these wonderful ice shelves from the little windows you have there. 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Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
I am 96 and the picture of longevity. These are my tips for living longer and better.
As I was leaving my doctor's office one of the nurses commented, 'You're looking great. I look forward to your 100th birthday party.' Startled, I realized, at 96, that wasn't so far off. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of Americans ages 100 and older is projected to quadruple over the next three decades, from an estimated 101,000 in 2024 to about 422,000 in 2054. It is exciting to read about the surge of millions living into their eighties, nineties, and early hundreds. The Atlantic labels it 'The Longevity Revolution.' Dr. Laura Cartensen, the Director of the Stanford Center on Longevity, describes it as "a long bright future," in her book "A Long Bright Future: An Action Plan for a Lifetime of Happiness, Health, and Financial Security.'' Meanwhile, Couglin, CEO of MIT's Age Lab, has written the book "The Longevity Economy: Unlocking the World's Fastest-Growing, Most Misunderstood Market." Regardless of labels, this is undeniably a period with opportunities to create new products, housing alternatives, policies, and services to meet the needs of the changing demographic. Longevity sounds great in theory, but what does this 'long bright future' mean in practice for you and me?At 90, I was raring to go. But then I was hospitalized with COVID-19 and pneumonia and expected to die. By 95, my energy level had plummeted. How was I going to continue being the me I had been for years—energetic, engaged, and optimistic? I found myself wondering, if I can no longer walk the way I did, give speeches with confidence, and consult with organizations the way I once did, then what can I do and how should I do it? Even with limitations, I still want to make a difference in the world. I'm not alone in these questions. Gregg Kaplan, age 72, has retired several times. His first career, right after college, was exploratory, resulting in purchasing one store in an airport. That experience led him to buy the entire franchise. After 25 years he sold his franchise and retired. Eventually he decided to return to his hobby, carpentry, and started designing and building kitchens. Once again he was extremely successful, even meeting his current wife on one of his jobs. After another 15 years, he realized it was really time to retire, but he kept putting it off. He is afraid he will no longer 'matter'—that his purpose will disappear. More: Should you choose a Roth IRA over a 401(k) for retirement savings? The longer you live, the more transitions you will confront. Therefore, to continue living well, we need to focus on how we can manage the many unexpected transitions ahead in order to take the mystery out of change. Viewing Kaplan's life through the transition lens provides a framework for understanding and coping with any transition at any time in life for anyone. Your ability to handle them depends on: Where you are in the transition process. As you exit your job or relationship and begin to move to something else, you will experience what anthropologists label a period of liminality (an ambiguous time in between major life phases) followed eventually by establishing a new life—a new set of roles, relationships, routines and assumptions. Right now, Kaplan, newly retired, knows he will not have another career but is a bit at sea. Golf is important but as he says, 'Is that all there is?' The degree to which the transition changes your life. The more a transition changes your life, the more stressful it can be. Kaplan's most recent transition (retirement) changes his role from worker to retiree, his relationships with colleagues and family, routines from work to golf, and assumptions from being relevant to not feeling he matters. The strength of your coping resources. We all approach transitions with potential resources - what I call the '4 S System': your situation (is your life in general good or stressful?), self (are you an optimist or a pessimist, are you resilient?), supports (do you have personal and institutional support that you can count on?), and strategies (do you use lots of strategies flexibly?) If your resources are strong you have a better chance of handling your transition. More: Social Security cost-of-living adjustment may be 2.5% in 2026, new estimate shows Don Bunch, former food and beverage director at the Sarasota Bay Club, a retirement community for over 300 residents, retired himself a few years ago. After a year of traveling he and his wife settled down. He had no hobbies and found himself sitting around the house, watching tv, totally bored. His old job opened up and he went back to work. After two years he decided it was really time to retire. His answer to my question about what makes this retirement better than the last one was clear: 'This time I have a new purpose. We are moving to a small midwestern town, I will be refurbishing a home, and I plan to get involved in community activities. I now know I need to matter and feel relevant.'' The late sociologist Morris Rosenberg coined the idea of "mattering" to describe a universal, and overlooked motivation. He pointed out how critical it is to believe that we make a difference in other people's lives. But how do you gain that confidence? First get involved and stay engaged. Dr. Carmi Schooler, a researcher at the National Institutes of Mental Health with others, studied the benefits of participating in challenging work and leisure activities. In a series of studies, they witnessed the increase in 'intellectual functioning' of those individuals exposed to 'substantively complex' environments, which they define as those that require self-direction and decision making. Playing bridge, writing a grant proposal, doing the crossword puzzle, or figuring out how to initiate a project are all examples of substantively complex activities. Studies in 1974 of 883 men and their wives engaged in work, and subsequent studies in 1994 of 315 men and 320 women pursuing leisure activities proved the point 'use it or lose it.' Also take advantage of ideas given to you. One retired pilot was at loose ends. His ex-wife told him about an ad for someone to deliver flowers. He jumped at the chance to make people happy each time he delivered live flowers. Aging leads to new careers, relationships and opportunities Longevity influences how we love, learn, work, and play as we continue aging. We will discover that life is a never-ending series of transitions--new careers, new relationships, new ways to enjoy leisure, new work and volunteer possibilities, and new opportunities to learn new skills. However, we need to keep in mind that longevity will also be filled with unexpected twists and turns. We will be forced to improvise as we deal with the unknown. I am often reminded of my friend Jeanne Hansel, who was forced to stop working as a therapist as her health declined. She decided to consciously use her remaining time to chart a new path. And not-so-coincidently, her spiritual path emerged after reading There Are No Accidents: Synchronicity and the Stories of Our lives written by Robert Hopke. Her later years reflected what may seem incompatible—physical decline coupled with personal growth. It can happen. One just has to be open to it. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: As Americans live longer, these are my tips for making the most of it
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Yahoo
Common Vitamin Could Be The Secret to Younger-Looking Skin
A vitamin commonly found in fresh fruits and vegetables could help slow one of the visible signs of aging: thinning skin. A new study has found that nourishment with vitamin C boosts epidermal thickness in lab-grown human skin models, and it does this by reactivating genes linked to cell growth. What's more, vitamin C concentrations normally delivered to human skin via the bloodstream are sufficient to have a measurable effect. The research from Japan, first-authored by pharmaceutical scientist Yasunori Sato of Hokuriku University, points to vitamin C as a tool for staving off at least some of the impacts of aging on our largest organ. "Vitamin C seems to influence the structure and function of epidermis, especially by controlling the growth of epidermal cells," explains biologist Akihito Ishigami of the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute for Geriatrics and Gerontology. "We investigated whether it promotes cell proliferation and differentiation via epigenetic changes." Related: 9 Foods That Pack More Vitamin C Than an Orange Healthy human skin contains high levels of vitamin C, suggesting active accumulation, and concentrations are lower in aged or UV-damaged skin. We know that the vitamin plays an important role in skin health, boosting collagen production, alleviating UV damage, and providing antioxidant protection. We also know that vitamin C plays a role in the demethylation of DNA, a process of removing methyl groups that is important for genetic stability and gene expression. The addition or removal of methyl groups act like a kind of molecular switch that can turn gene activity on or off, without changing the genomic sequence. What role demethylation plays in the differentiation of skin cells called keratinocytes, however, was unclear. The human epidermis is dominated by keratinocytes, which form at the very bottommost layer and slowly move upward through its multiple layers as they mature, eventually becoming the dead cells that make up the skin's uppermost layer – the stratum corneum. The stratum corneum consists entirely of dead cells, serving a protective function for the live skin cells underneath. It's from here that dead skin cells are shed, replenished by keratinocytes making their way up from below. To test the role of vitamin C in skin health, the researchers grew human keratinocytes in petri dishes, with the upper layer exposed to the air, and fed by a nutrient solution from below, mimicking how skin behaves in living humans. Into the nutrient solution, the researchers added concentrations of vitamin C consistent with the concentrations delivered by the circulatory system. A separate group of cells was grown without vitamin C as a control. After one week, the models nourished with vitamin C had a thicker layer of living epidermis cells than the control group, while no effect was seen on the stratum corneum. After 14 days, the epidermal cell layer was thicker still, and the stratum corneum showed thinning, suggesting that the vitamin C was promoting cell proliferation. Related: The researchers sequenced the DNA and RNA of their samples, and traced this cell proliferation to demethylation that appears to be mediated by vitamin C sustaining the function of enzymes that regulate gene activity through demethylation. These enzymes need a specific form of iron to keep doing their demethylation job, and vitamin C helps regenerate that form of iron. This effectively reactivates the genes associated with cell proliferation. Under the influence of vitamin C, the expression of 12 key proliferation genes in the samples was increased, some by as much as 75 times. When the researchers applied an inhibitor to the enzyme, the effect was reversed, confirming that vitamin C works through this specific pathway. These results suggest the vitamin may be useful to develop treatments for countering the effects of age. "We found that vitamin C helps thicken the skin by encouraging keratinocyte proliferation through DNA demethylation," Ishigami says, "making it a promising treatment for thinning skin, especially in older adults." The research has been published in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology. Scans Reveal What The Brains of Psychopaths Have in Common First Step Towards an Artificial Human Genome Now Underway Nightmares Could Make You 3 Times More Likely Die Before 75
