Tag Archives: geroscience

Scientific summit explores the ‘disease drivers’ of aging

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Photo by Liz SeegertNir Barzali presented at the recent Disease Drivers of Aging: 2016 Advances in Geroscience Summit.

Photo by Liz SeegertNir Barzali presented at the recent Disease Drivers of Aging: 2016 Advances in Geroscience Summit.

A large geroscience meeting in New York last month made me wish I had paid closer attention in my high school biology class.

Experts in the science of aging and researchers in clinical, translational and basic science from the fields of cancer, diabetes, HIV/AIDS and brain health met at the Disease Drivers of Aging: 2016 Advances in Geroscience Summit on April 13-14 to discuss key disease drivers of aging. Continue reading →

Liz Seegert is an independent health journalist and AHCJ’s topic leader on aging. She covers older adults, baby boomers, health policy, and social determinants of health, as well as many other health issues. Her bylines include stories for PBS/NextAvenue.org. the American Journal of Nursing, TIME Health, Medscape, Consumer Reports, and Medical Economics, as well as dozens of other trade and mainstream media. Her articles have been syndicated in Forbes.com, the Los Angeles Times, the Hartford Courant, the Saturday Evening Post and other major outlets.

Research focuses on improving life as we extend it

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What happens to quality of life when science actually slows the aging process? That’s what the emerging field of geroscience is all about, according to an interdisciplinary panel of researchers at this year’s Gerontological Society of America Conference. Geroscience tackles biological factors of chronic diseases and aging itself as a risk factor for developing chronic diseases. It has numerous implications for extending healthy life span, enhancing quality of life in later years and impacting public policy surrounding aging and long-term care.

Or, as S. Jay Olshansky, Ph.D., professor at the school of public health at the University of Illinois at Chicago calls it, the Longevity Dividend. “This is a very short way of saying we’re trying to find a way to extend the period of healthy life by going after all the things that go wrong with us as we grow older, which is to go after the biological process of aging itself.” Continue reading →

Liz Seegert is an independent health journalist and AHCJ’s topic leader on aging. She covers older adults, baby boomers, health policy, and social determinants of health, as well as many other health issues. Her bylines include stories for PBS/NextAvenue.org. the American Journal of Nursing, TIME Health, Medscape, Consumer Reports, and Medical Economics, as well as dozens of other trade and mainstream media. Her articles have been syndicated in Forbes.com, the Los Angeles Times, the Hartford Courant, the Saturday Evening Post and other major outlets.

Senate committee brings together cross-disciplinary aging researchers

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aging-committeeLeaders of some of the top aging research programs in the U.S. discussed the challenges and frustrations surrounding aging research on Tuesday during the Senate Special Committee on Aging Roundtable on “Tackling Diseases of Aging: Why Research Collaboration Matters,” which was broadcast online. Committee Chairman Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), convened the session, which focused in part on the emerging field of geroscience.

Geroscience attempts to bridge the gap between the fundamental biological processes that underlie aging and clinical work on aging-related disease and disability. Twenty divisions within the National Institutes of Health and the Gerontological Society of America are working within a gerontological research interest group to develop cross-disciplinary research recommendations to advance geroscience, said Richard Hodes, M.D., director of the National Institute on Aging. Continue reading →

Liz Seegert is an independent health journalist and AHCJ’s topic leader on aging. She covers older adults, baby boomers, health policy, and social determinants of health, as well as many other health issues. Her bylines include stories for PBS/NextAvenue.org. the American Journal of Nursing, TIME Health, Medscape, Consumer Reports, and Medical Economics, as well as dozens of other trade and mainstream media. Her articles have been syndicated in Forbes.com, the Los Angeles Times, the Hartford Courant, the Saturday Evening Post and other major outlets.