Neurobiologists have discovered why the aging brain produces progressively fewer new nerve cells in its learning and memory center. The scientists said the finding, made in rodents, refutes current ideas on how long crucial “progenitor” stem cells persist in the aging brain.
HHS’ Assistant Secretary for Aging Josefina G. Carbonell announced a new Web site that will make it easier for consumers to get the information they need to plan for long-term care. The National Clearinghouse for Long-Term Care Information Web site provides comprehensive information about long-term care planning, services and financing options, along with tools to help people begin the planning process.
A study published in Journal of the American Geriatrics Society finds that moderate alcohol intake (1-2 drinks/day for 3-6 days/week, depending on alcoholic content) may lead to increased quality of life and survival in older women. The Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health followed nearly 12,000 women in their 70’s over a six-year period. The group was comprised of non-drinkers, occasional drinkers and moderate drinkers.
A new, easy-to-read booklet ? Stay Safe in Cold Weather! ? offers older adults tips on avoiding a dangerous condition called hypothermia. This free 12-page publication is now available from the National Institute on Aging (NIA), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Science may be one step closer to understanding how a limb can be grown or a spinal cord can be repaired. Scientists at The Forsyth Institute have discovered that some cells have to die for regeneration to occur.
In the United States, the total fertility rate — the number of children a woman has in her lifetime — fell from seven or eight in 1800 to slightly more than two today, says J. David Hacker, assistant professor of history at Binghamton University. And with a five-year $667,237 grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Hacker hopes to find out why.
Scientists collaborating at Cornell University in Ithaca and Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City have identified a panel of 23 protein biomarkers in cerebrospinal fluid that acts as a neurochemical “fingerprint,” which doctors might use someday to identify patients living with Alzheimer’s disease. The research will be published in the December online edition of the journal Annals of Neurology.
A new study finds that “off-peak” electricity production and transmission capacity could fuel 84 percent of the country’s 220 million vehicles if they were plug-in hybrid electrics. This is the first review of what the impacts would be of very high market penetrations of PHEVs. Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory also evaluated the impact of PHEVs, on foreign oil imports, the environment, electric utilities and the consumer.
My Medicare Matters TM, which is sponsored by the National Council on Aging (NCOA) and supported through a grant from AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LP (NYSE: AZN), announced today its targeted community-based education and outreach initiatives in 2007 in support of Medicare Part-D, which will include a project designed to identify and pilot innovative strategies that can help find and reach low-income seniors who may be eligible for Medicare Extra Help and other prescription savings programs.
A key enzyme that cuts short our cellular lifespan in an effort to thwart cancer has now been linked to body mass.Until now, scientists believed that our relatively long lifespans controlled the expression of telomerase — an enzyme that can lengthen the lives of cells, but can also increase the rate of cancer.