It's not yet clear why overweight elderly adults have low levels of vitamin D in their blood. However, researchers at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University (USDA HNRCA) have found that lack of sun exposure may not account for low levels of vitamin D in elders who are overweight.

Low levels of testosterone may increase the long-term risk of death in men over 50 years old, according to researchers with the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine.

Adding a medication to a standard treatment regimen for major depressive disorder in the elderly improves chances of recovery in those who do not adequately respond to the first-course therapy or who relapse from it, finds a University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine study published in the June issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry, the official journal of the American Psychiatric Association.

Why do older people tend to lose muscle mass and grow frail? One important factor identified by medical science is the reduced ability of the elderly to respond to the muscle-building stimulus of the hormone insulin.

The Village at Gordon House, an assisted living facility located in Orange County, Virginia, has introduced a new bed-and-breakfast standard of living for the elderly. Less than a two-hour drive from Washington, D.C., the facility is nestled among antebellum homes in historic Gordonsville, in close proximity to Charlottesville and the University of Virginia.

The number of spinal cord injuries among senior citizens (age 70 and above) has increased five times in the past 30 years, as compared with younger spinal cord injury patients, researchers at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and Jefferson's Regional Spinal Cord Injury Center of the Delaware Valley recently reported.