Communication is critical. Garbled in, garbled out, so to (mis-)speak. Workers who get incomplete instructions produce an incomplete product, and that's exactly what happens with the stem cells in our aging muscles, according to researchers from the Stanford University School of Medicine.

For decades, older women have taken hormone replacements to replenish estrogen and progesterone levels lost to aging. More recently, testosterone (the most important male hormone) supplements have been used by aging men to improve their muscle mass, bone strength, libido and quality of life.

Aging flies are simply crawling with bacteria—both inside and out—but their microbial infestations don’t seem to hasten the insects toward death, according to a new study in the August issue of the journal Cell Metabolism, a publication of Cell Press. The findings suggest that the energy the flies expend to fight their burgeoning bugs comes without a longevity trade-off, the researchers said.

USC study of fruit flies finds no cause-and-effect link between increased bacterial load and aging

The longstanding idea that the entire human face ages uniformly is in need of a facelift, say researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center who have found that multiple, distinct compartments of fat in the face age at different rates.

Physical exercise is known to be good for the aging brain, but what about mental stimulation" Does enrichment that helps older people work well for the young and middle aged, or do they need something else" A report in the August issue of Behavioral Neuroscience tells how, in an animal experiment, older adults appear to benefit from either or both mental and physical enrichment.

Long-term use of histamine2 receptor antagonists (H2A), one class of drugs that blocks stomach acid, may be associated with cognitive impairment in older African-American adults. According to an Indiana University School of Medicine and Regenstrief Institute study published in the August issue of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, the risk for showing signs of cognitive impairment is 2.5 times greater for patients using these medications long-term.

Aging adults may joke about memory lapses and “early Alzheimer’s.” They may worry when they can’t understand a drug plan or lose track of the characters in a novel.

A new model for understanding how autism is acquired has been developed by a team of researchers led by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) and Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

There is little disagreement that the body’s maintenance and repair systems deteriorate with age, even as there is plenty of disagreement as to why. Stem cells combat the aging process by replenishing old or damaged cells—particularly in the skin, gut, and blood—with a fresh supply to maintain and repair tissue.

The body may hold a secret to normalizing skin cell growth that is over zealous in psoriasis and non-melanoma skin cancers and too slow in aging and sun-damaged skin, researchers say.

Sweden, like much of Scandinavia, is known for its high quality care for older adults. Most importantly, the system helps to keep older adults independent. With the growing demand brought on by aging baby boomers however, the government has been challenged to maintain this high level of services.