Journals of Gerontology. Series A, Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences

BACKGROUND: Although studies have demonstrated associations between sleep quality (SQ) and grip strength (GS) in older adults, the direction and underlying mechanisms of this relationship are yet to be better delineated. We aimed to longitudinally investigate the bidirectional association between SQ and GS and the mediating role of depression in this association. METHODS: Based on two nationally representative samples with people aged ≥ 50 years from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS; 4,200 participants) and English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA; 5,922 participants), cross-lagged panel models were employed to examine the potential bidirectional relationships between objectively measured GS and self-reported SQ...

BACKGROUND: Cognitive impairment is associated with increased mortality rates in late life, but it is unclear whether worse cognition predicts working-age mortality. METHODS: The data come from a US national survey (N=3,973 aged 32-84 at cognitive testing in 2004-06, mean age 56.6, 56.3% female; N=3,055 retested in 2013-18 at ages 42-94, mean age 64.6, 56.6% female; mortality follow-up through 2019). We use Cox hazard models to investigate whether cognition is associated with mortality below age 65, how the magnitude of this risk compares with the risk in later life, and whether the association persists after adjusting for potential confounders...

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Osteosarcopenia is a complex geriatric syndrome characterized by the presence of both sarcopenia and osteopenia/osteoporosis. This condition increases rates of disability, falls, fractures, mortality and mobility impairments in older adults. The purpose of this study was to analyze the Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy diagnostic power for osteosarcopenia in community-dwelling older women (n = 64, 32 osteosarcopenic and 32 non-osteosarcopenia). FTIR is a fast and reproducible technique highly sensitive to biological tissues and a mathematical model was created using multivariate classification techniques that denoted the graphic spectra of the molecular groups...

People who have a balanced diet and engage in more physical activity live longer, healthier lives. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that these associations reflect a slowing of biological processes of aging. We analyzed data from 42,625 participants (aged 20-84 years, 51% females) from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES), 1999-2018. We calculated adherence to a Mediterranean diet (MeDi) and level of leisure time physical activity (LTPA) using standard methods. We measured biological aging by applying the PhenoAge algorithm, developed using clinical and mortality data from NHANES-III (1988-1994), to clinical chemistries measured from a blood draw at the time of the survey...

Mounting evidence indicates that abnormal gait speed predicts the progression of neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's disease. Understanding the relationship between white matter integrity, especially myelination, and motor function is crucial to the diagnosis and treatment of neurodegenerative diseases. We recruited 118 cognitively unimpaired adults across an extended age range of 22 to 94 years to examine associations between rapid and usual gait speeds and cerebral myelin content. Using our advanced multicomponent magnetic resonance (MR) relaxometry method, we measured myelin water fraction (MWF), a direct measure of myelin content, as well as longitudinal and transverse relaxation rates (R1 and R2), sensitive but non-specific MRI measures of myelin content...

Brain regions' rates of age-related volumetric change after traumatic brain injury (TBI) are unknown. Here we quantify these rates cross-sectionally in 113 persons with recent mild TBI (mTBI), whom we compare against 3418 healthy controls (HCs). Regional gray matter (GM) volumes were extracted from magnetic resonance images (MRIs). Linear regression yielded regional brain ages and the annualized average rates of regional GM volume loss. These results were compared across groups after accounting for sex and intracranial volume...

GrimAge acceleration (GrimAgeAccel) and PhenoAge acceleration (PhenoAgeAccel) are DNA methylation-based markers of accelerated biological aging, standing out in predicting mortality and age-related cardiometabolic morbidities. Causal risk factors for GrimAgeAccel and PhenoAgeAccel are unclear. In this study, we performed two-sample univariable and multivariable Mendelian randomization (MR) to investigate causal associations of 19 modifiable socioeconomic, lifestyle, and cardiometabolic factors with GrimAgeAccel and PhenoAgeAccel...

BACKGROUND: An important epidemiological question is understanding how vascular risk factors contribute to cognitive impairment. Using data from the Cardiovascular Health Cognition Study, we investigated how subclinical cardiovascular disease (sCVD) relates to cognitive impairment risk and the extent to which the hypothesized risk is mediated by the incidence of clinically manifested cardiovascular disease (CVD), both overall and within apolipoprotein E-4 (APOE-4) subgroups. METHODS: We adopted a novel "separable effects" causal mediation framework that assumes that sCVD has separably intervenable atherosclerosis-related components...

Our aim was to investigate the association between gut microbiota and delirium occurrence in acutely ill older adults. We included 133 participants 65+ years consecutively admitted to the emergency department of a tertiary university hospital, between September 2019 and March 2020. We excluded candidates with ≥24-hour antibiotic utilization on admission, recent prebiotic or probiotic utilization, artificial nutrition, acute gastrointestinal disorders, severe traumatic brain injury, recent hospitalization, institutionalization, expected discharge ≤48 hours, or admission for end-of-life care...

BACKGROUND: Severe hypoglycemia is associated with adverse clinical outcomes. We evaluated the risk of severe hypoglycemia in older adults initiating newer glucose-lowering medications overall and across strata of known indicators of high hypoglycemia risk. METHODS: We conducted a comparative-effectiveness cohort study of older adults aged >65 years with type 2 diabetes initiating SGLT2i vs. DPP-4i or SGLT2i vs. GLP-1RA using Medicare claims (3/2013-12/2018) and Medicare-linked-electronic health records...

BACKGROUND: Recent studies suggest a decline in the age-specific incidence and prevalence of dementia. However, results are mixed regarding trends among octogenarians. We investigated time trends in the prevalence and incidence of dementia in three population-based cohorts of 85-90-year-olds. We also examined if there were different time trends for men and women. METHODS: We examined population-based birth cohorts within the Gothenburg H70 Birth Cohort Studies born 1901-02, 1923-24, and 1930, at ages 85 (N=1481) and 88 (N=840) years...

Cholinergic circuits in the central nervous system are vulnerable to age-related functional decline, but it is not known if aging impacts cholinergic signaling in the vestibular sensory organs, which are critically important to balance maintenance and visual gaze stability. We have previously shown cholinergic neurotransmission between vestibular efferent terminals and type II mechanosensory hair cells requires the alpha9 (Chrna9) nicotinic receptor subunit. Homozygous knockout of the alpha9 subunit causes vestibulo-ocular reflex adaptation deficits that mirror those observed in aged mice...

The human lifespan has been markedly extended since the 1900s, but it has not brought healthy aging to everyone. This increase in life expectancy without an increase in healthspan is a major global concern that imposes considerable healthcare budgets and degrades the quality of life of older adults. Dietary interventions are a promising strategy to increase healthspan. In this study, we evaluated whether a Gardenia jasminoides Ellis fruit ethanol extract (GFE) increases the lifespan of Caenorhabditis elegans (C...

In his 1910 JAMA Address the physician and pathologist Christian Herter (1865-1910) emphasized the importance of plasticity in science. Herter's insight is significant for understanding how public health's "ecology of ideas" must evolve and change as the health challenges facing populations alters through the different stages of "epidemiologic transition" (Omran 1971). The foundational moral aspiration (i.e. disease control) and intellectual suppositions (e.g. that public health is "purchasable") of the early twentieth century public health pioneers C-E...

This study explores the relationship of life course inter-generational social mobility with cognitive function and brain structure in older adults using Diagonal Reference Models (DRMs). Data from the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing, a population-based cohort of adults aged 50 years and older (N=4,620 participants; mean age: 66.1; SD:9.1; 55% female) was used for analysis. Brain MRI data was available for 464 participants. Social mobility was characterised as the difference between childhood socio-economic position (SEP) (i...

Prior evidence suggests that physical activity may reduce the risk of multiple diseases and mortality. However, whether and how physical activity affects the aging process remains largely unexplored. We included 284,479 UK Biobank participants and computed leukocyte telomere length (LTL) deviation (i.e., the difference between genetically determined and observed LTL) and biological age acceleration (BAA, defined as the discrepancy between the phenotypic age of a person and the average phenotypic age in the cohort of individuals with the same age and sex) as the indexes for aging acceleration...

BACKGROUND: Several studies have reported the association between blood neurofilament light chain (NfL) levels and all-cause mortality. However, the generalizability of these findings in general adults remains unclear. The aim of this study was to examine the association between serum NfL and all-cause mortality in a nationally representative population. METHODS: Longitudinal data were obtained from 2 071 participants aged 20-75 years in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2013-2014 cycle...

BACKGROUND: Repeat fractures contribute substantially to fracture incidents in older adults. We examined the association between cognitive impairment and re-fractures during the first 90 days after older adults with hip fractures were discharged home from a skilled nursing facility rehabilitation short stay. METHODS: Multilevel binary logistic regression was used to analyze 100% of US national post-acute-care fee-for-service Medicare beneficiaries who: had a hospital admission for hip fracture from 2018/01/01 to 2018/07/31; were admitted for a skilled nursing facility stay within 30 days of hospital discharge; and were discharged to the community after a short stay...

BACKGROUND: Pain and sarcopenia are common in older people. Cross-sectional studies have reported a significant association between these two conditions, but cohort studies exploring pain as potential risk factor for sarcopenia are scarce. Given this background, the aim of the present study was to investigate the association between pain (and its severity) at baseline, and the incidence of sarcopenia over ten years of follow-up in a large representative sample of the English older adult population...