RESEARCH AREAS
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Seven ways into the science of aging. Explore the questions that define each area.
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25–36 of 45 articles
Can lowering blood pressure protect cognition?
Randomized trials support benefits for some cognitive outcomes, but fewer cognitive diagnoses, better test performance and prevention of dementia are different findings. Certain blood pressure…
- Clinical cognitive outcomesModerate
- Mean cognitive scoresLimited
- Vascular mechanismsLimited
- Specific safety outcomesModerate
What does menopausal hormone therapy improve? Timing and longevity evidence
Menopausal hormone therapy can relieve some menopausal symptoms and reduce certain fractures. Those benefits do not directly establish slower ageing or longer life. Whether earlier initiation is…
- Arterial imagingModerate
- CognitionModerate
- Disease and composite outcomesModerate
- Overall mortalityModerate
- Observational inferenceLimited
Do species that accumulate mutations more slowly live longer?
In a 2022 comparison of mammalian intestinal crypts, the reported annual somatic substitution rate in mice was about 17 times the human rate. Longer-lived species had lower annual rates. That…
- Cross-species associationModerate
- Lifetime burden and mechanismLimited
- Perturbation and health outcomesLimited
Do GLP-1 Drugs Reduce Disease—or Slow Ageing?
Semaglutide reduced major cardiovascular events in the population enrolled in SELECT. Interpreting that result as broadly slower ageing requires additional evidence: whether benefits transfer to…
- Primary cardiovascular endpointStrong
- Mortality and mechanismLimited
- Cognitive evidenceLimited
- Safety and tolerabilityModerate
- General ageing and life-yearsNot yet determinable
Does blocking IL-11 extend life? Mouse survival, function and human evidence
Blocking IL-11 extended survival in one study of naturally ageing mice and improved frailty and body-mass-normalized grip in a separate cohort. Reanalysis of the individual mouse records supports the…
- Mouse survivalModerate
- Autopsy and mediationLimited
- Mouse functionModerate
- Mechanism attributionLimited
- Human translationNot yet determinable
Can treating hearing loss slow cognitive decline?
ACHIEVE did not detect an overall cognitive benefit across its 977 participants over three years, but it found a signal in the prespecified ARIC recruitment subgroup. Three questions need separate…
- Overall RCT cognitionModerate
- Recruitment subgroup and risk enrichmentLimited
- Measurement and retestingLimited
- Disease and pathologyLimited
Why do a few cell families expand in ageing blood?
Some blood-forming cell families expand with age. A rising fraction of sequencing reads carrying a mutation, however, can reflect selection, changes in the blood-forming environment, or measurement…
- Variant trajectories and selectionModerate
- Growth models and predictionLimited
- Detection and life historyLimited
- Clinical riskModerate
- Intervention extrapolationNot yet determinable
Metformin: Do Metabolic Changes Improve Function in Older Adults Without Diabetes?
Metformin can alter metabolism and tissue molecular readouts. Whether those changes help older adults without diabetes walk faster or become stronger requires direct functional trials. Findings are…
- Molecules and methodsLimited
- Training adaptationModerate
- Clinical functionLimited
- Healthspan extrapolationNot yet determinable
Does lowering inflammation slow aging?
Some anti-inflammatory interventions reduce disease events in specific populations, but that does not establish a slower rate of whole-body aging. Target pathways, inflammatory measurements, clinical…
- Disease eventsModerate
- Pathways and mediationLimited
- Inflammatory measurementsLimited
- General slowing of agingNot yet determinable
Why are some people robust at 70 while others are frail?
Two people can reach 70 with very different health reserves. The frailty index (FI) summarizes part of that difference by adding scores for a set of health deficits and dividing by the number of…
- Index constructionLimited
- FI and mortalityModerate
- Composition at a given scoreLimited
- Temporal validationLimited
Does sleeping too little accelerate aging—and is too much sleep harmful too?
Sleep and mortality studies often show a U-shaped curve: people reporting short or long sleep have higher mortality than those reporting about seven hours. Several explanations fit that pattern…
- Reported sleep and mortalityModerate
- Reverse causation and healthLimited
- Bias simulationLimited
- Intervention and aging rateNot yet determinable
Protein Supports Muscle, Yet mTOR Inhibition Is Called Anti-Aging: Where Is the Contradiction?
Muscle synthesis after a meal, strength after months of training, and animal lifespan are different outcomes. Distinguishing them helps explain the apparent contradiction, without identifying an…
- Acute synthesisModerate
- Muscle mass over monthsModerate
- Human function and safetyLimited
- Timing and tissue mechanismsLimited
- Animal survivalModerate
- Human longevity translationNot yet determinable