If you think the air outside is polluted, a new research report in the September 2009 issue of the journal Genetics might make you to think twice about the air inside our bodies too. That's because researchers show how about 3 percent of the air we breathe gets converted into harmful superoxides, which ultimately harm our muscles.

Presbycusis, or age-related hearing loss, accounts for 30 percent of all hearing loss. So, why do some people lose their hearing as they get older but other people can still hear a pin drop?

Older adults who exercise regularly show increased cerebral blood flow and a greater number of small blood vessels in the brain, according to findings presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

A recent study conducted at Mayo Clinic suggests that high levels of one of the natural insulin-like proteins involved in regulating tissue growth and maintenance in the body, Insulin-Like Growth Factor Binding Protein-2 (IGFBP-2), also may be an indicator of low bone density and high rates of bone loss in older women and men.

Researchers at Oregon Health & Science University have uncovered new information about the body’s immune system in a study that suggests new strategies may be in order for protecting the country’s aging population against disease. The research is published in the current edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

By making the skeletal muscles of mice use energy less efficiently, researchers report in the December issue of Cell Metabolism, a publication of Cell Press, that they have delayed the animals’ deaths and their development of age-related diseases, including vascular disease, obesity, and one form of cancer.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have created the first animal model of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) caused by a mutation known to produce disease in people, an important first step in developing treatments. The study appears in the October issue of Human Molecular Genetics.

High blood levels of C-reactive protein, a substance linked to inflammation, appear to be associated with an increased risk for age-related macular degeneration, according to a report in the October issue of Archives of Ophthalmology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

A remarkable change takes place in the brains of tiny songbirds every year, and some day the mechanism controlling that change may help researchers develop treatments for age-related degenerative diseases of the brain such as Parkinson’s and dementia.

Consuming higher levels of the yellow plant pigments lutein and zeaxanthin may be associated with a lower risk for age-related macular degeneration, according to a report in the September issue of Archives of Ophthalmology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

People who live to 100 or more are known to have just as many—and sometimes even more—harmful gene variants compared with younger people.

Two University of Chicago psychologists, Louise Hawkley and John Cacioppo, have been trying to disentangle social isolation, loneliness, and the physical deterioration and diseases of aging, right down to the cellular level.