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This Outlook unravels some mysteries of human longevity. It explores advances in how biological ageing is measured, how the COVID-19 pandemic might affect human ageing, lessons from ageing societies such as Japan, and what “super centenarians” can teach us about growing old.
Family ties in the world’s second-most-populous country are loosening as more Indians move for work. Farther east, one in three Japanese people will be over 65 by 2036. What can these countries teach us?
Cell and animal studies suggest that boosting nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN) levels can alleviate or even reverse age-related conditions by stimulating NAD+ metabolism, but will these effects translate to humans?
What makes some human brains more resilient to aging than others? In an Article in Nature Aging, Chan et al. provide evidence that brain connectomes in older adults are altered by a college education — an environmental factor that might be an advantageous modulator of brain reserve during aging.
One of the mechanisms driving aging and neurodegenerative diseases is the accumulation of senescent cells, while their elimination mitigates age-related decline. A new report details how, with aging, changes in the dentate gyrus microenvironment lead to natural-killer-cell-mediated clearance of neurogenic senescent cells, resulting in cognitive decline.
The knowledge generated through aging research has huge potential for improving individual lives and society. Embedding the principles of participant involvement and appropriate representation of the diversity of the aging population into this research can help to ensure that its intended benefits are fully realised.
The gut microbiome can change with age and influence aging-related diseases systemically, including in the brain. The authors show that rejuvenation of the gut microbiome by fecal microbiota transplantation from young mice reverses aging-induced deficits in the hippocampal immune system, metabolome and transcriptome, and rescues selective cognitive deficits.
A study in humans indicates that certain bile acids that are produced by bacteria and commonly found in people over 100 boost gut health and protect against infection. These findings shed light on the contributors to healthy ageing.
Aging is associated with a progressive loss of muscle function. Here the authors characterize mitochondrial capacity and muscle function in young and older adults with similar habitual physical activity and also compared to older adults with exercise training or with physical impairment.
From the blood immunome of 1,001 individuals aged 8–96 years, the authors used deep learning to develop an inflammatory clock of aging (iAge) that tracks with multimorbidity, immunosenescence, frailty and cardiovascular aging, and is also associated with exceptional longevity in centenarians. The main contributor to iAge is the chemokine CXCL9, which is shown to control endothelial cell senescence and function.