Category Archives: Longevity Medicine

Photo Credit: Pixabay / Steve PB

Subscribe to our Sheba Medical Center list

For the lucky ones, weight gain is limited to a few extra pounds put on over the holidays and lost in the weeks thereafter. But for those with a predisposition for overweight, the battle of the bulge is a lifelong struggle punctuated by physical and emotional challenges.

Given the range of serious medical issues associated with overweight, from diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease and cancer to infertility, sleep apnea and skeletal pain it comes as no surprise that the medical community considers obesity as a disease unto itself.

Shocking statistics indicate that 90% to 95% of people with obesity who diet and lose weight will gain it back within the first year, often with interest. The urgent need for an innovative approach to treat and cure this disease has led to the establishment of the Israeli Center for Obesity Management, a division of the Department of Endocrinology at Sheba Medical Center. In the words of Dr. Gabriella Lieberman, Senior Specialist at Shebas Endocrine Institute and director of the Center: Theres no one obesity, but obesities. People who suffer from overweight have different problems. Thats why the one-size-fits-all approach often fails.

When seeking the main culprit responsible for the obesity epidemic, a phenomenon identified only in the last 50 years, its impossible to ignore the advent of processed foods and the accompanying plastic packaging and preservatives. Were exposed to hundreds of chemical additives, categorized by the FDA as GRAS (generally recognized as safe) but whose long-term effects have not been thoroughly examined, explains Professor Amir Tirosh, director of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism at Sheba Medical Center. We can assume that most are indeed safe, but we dont need more than a couple dozen that are not so safe to suffer the consequences.

In a ground-breaking study conducted together with colleagues from Harvard University, Prof. Tirosh observed the effects of propionate, a common preservative found in bread and baked goods. The findings indicated that the chemical can cause elevated glucose levels, impacting insulin sensitivity and metabolism. While the findings are not yet thoroughly validated in humans to warrant a recommendation to ban propionate, they do point to the need to more closely assess the potential long-term effects of this chemical, and perhaps others.

Personalized Medicine

At the Obesity Center in Sheba, patients undergo a thorough assessment by a team of experts, including an endocrinologist, dietitian, psychologist, and sports medicine expert. After measuring the patients metabolic rate as well as body composition, the experts will consult and evaluate all this information to build a tailor-made plan that will suit the individuals distinctive needs and parameters.

After receiving their individualized plan, patients come periodically to the clinic to meet with the professionals and track their weight loss. Depending on the circumstances, patients might be candidates for GI procedures such as intra-gastric balloons and duodenal devices, endoscopic gastroplasty or bariatric surgery. Additionally, there are relatively new weight loss drugs available today that have taken the medical community by storm.

Saxenda and Belviq work by suppressing appetite and have relatively few side effects, which usually disappear with time. Naturally, the first question that people ask is, How much weight will I lose with this drug? Dr. Lieberman is quick to explain that there is no way she can predict weight loss. There is an average weight loss, but each individual will experience different results. Some people may lose more than the average; for others, the drug may be less effective. Although shes seen patients make tremendous progress with the help of meds, Dr. Lieberman makes it clear that the drug can never replace lifestyle modification.

The good news is that it doesnt take much to achieve a drastic improvement in health. According to Prof. Tirosh, in order to treat metabolic disorder, prevent diabetes, and improve high blood pressure, the goal is to lose 7% of body weight. If a patient can maintain that long term, Im very pleased.

In the Pipeline

According to Prof. Tirosh, one of the most exciting breakthroughs in obesity research is in the field of genetic screening. Were performing clinical studies here at Sheba, and can now screen for mutations to determine if patients have a genetic propensity to obesity. Its extremely validating for patients who have been struggling all their lives with obesity to know that theyre not to blame; its not because theyre lazy, or because they lack willpower.

In a departure from conventional methods, Dr. Ruth Percik, senior specialist at the Endocrinology Institute at Sheba Medical Center, is researching weight loss solutions to obesity employing neurofeedback training the brain and harnessing its power to gain greater self-awareness and increase self-control, willpower, and mindfulness. The notion that obesity could be treated via the brain occurred to her during her stint at the Max Plank Institute for Brain Research in Leipzig, where she learned that the behavior patterns linked to obesity were clearly evident in brain scans.

Scientists at Max Plank observed that the people who had lost their excess weight and kept it off for a decade, so-called Sustained Weight Losers, all had something in common: a high level of self-discipline, which is clearly discernible in brain imaging, Dr. Percik explains. To illustrate, when obese people were shown an image of their favorite food, all the pleasure centers in their brain lit up, light those of an addict. By contrast, when SWLs were shown their favorite food, only part of their brains were stimulated; the rest was quiet. This indicates an internal restraint mechanism, which translates as their ability to adhere to their menu plan.

A year and a half after the study, 70 percent of participants have managed to keep the weight off, corroborating Dr. Perciks hypothesis.In clinical studies at Max Plank, neurofeedback is measured via fMRI, which is not economically feasible for widespread use. Dr. Percik and her team are currently exploring a device that is compact, portable and user-friendly, to be incorporated at hebas Obesity Center.

Nutritional Blues

After all is said and done, it comes down to food intake. Dana Weiner, director of the Department of Nutrition at Sheba Medical Center, debunks the myths of traditional dieting.

When people come to me, they expect me to hand them a diet. But I dont believe in one diet that suits everyone. Even the Mediterranean diet, which I agree is an excellent food plan, is not suited to everyone.

Dana believes that like all areas in medicine, nutritional science is moving in the direction of a more personalized diet, based on a persons genetic makeup and where they live. She brings evidence from study of the Blue Zones, five areas in the world whose inhabitants exhibited greatest longevity and quality of life, yet each have distinctively different diets. What they all do have in common in terms of regimen is a plant-based diet, strategies to prevent overeating, limited alcohol consumption, and physical activity as a way of life.My dream as a dietician at Sheba is to establish nationwide programs to educate families about healthy lifestyle and proper eating habits along with food security for everyone, Dana shares.

Would you like more articles like this from Sheba Medical Center?

Continued here:
Weighing In on the Obesity Epidemic - The Jewish Press - JewishPress.com

Available on PerkinElmers automated GSP instrument, kit supports early diagnosis by measuring CK-MM concentration instead of CK enzyme activity

PerkinElmer, Inc., (NYSE: PKI), a global leader committed to innovating for a healthier world, today announced that its GSP Neonatal Creatine Kinase MM (CK-MM) kit has received U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) approval. This solution is the first commercially available assay for screening newborns affected by Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD).

DMD is an X-linked recessive disease and the most prevalent type of muscular dystrophy, affecting approximately 1 in 5,000 live male births. The disorder is caused by mutations in the dystrophin gene, which supports the mechanical strength of muscle fibers. Without dystrophin, a patients muscles progressively weaken and deteriorate, ultimately resulting in premature death from poor respiratory function and cardiac failure.

Although there is no known cure, recent studies demonstrate the importance of early intervention and treatment. In particular, steroid treatments like corticosteroids have been proven to support muscle repair and reduce detrimental side effects in infants, underscoring the need for DMD testing at the earliest point in life.1 PerkinElmers kit is specifically designed for screening newborn babies by measuring CK-MMthe predominant isoform in skeletal muscle cells and most specific to skeletal muscle damagein dried blood spot samples.2 CK-MM levels are typically elevated in DMD patients, as the degeneration of skeletal muscle cells causes CK to release into the bloodstream.

"It is a cost-effective way to screen for DMD with a two-tier testing approach; the first tier CK-MM assay allows identification of infants with excess muscle damage at birth, and the second tier DMD gene analysis would link the muscle damage to the genetic defect," said Mei Baker, MD, FACMG, professor in the Department of Pediatrics and Co-Director in the Newborn Screening Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.

"Screening newborns not only prevents DMD patients and their families from an unnecessary diagnostic odyssey, but also ensures timely treatment for a disease that could otherwise go undetected for years," said Linh Hoang, M.D., Ph.D., Vice President, Reproductive Health, PerkinElmer. "By measuring the muscle-specific isoform, rather than total CK activity, PerkinElmers assay enables clinicians to identify babies with this condition faster and, most importantly, give them a better chance at improved health outcomes."

For more information on PerkinElmers CK-MM assay and other newborn screening solutions, please visit: newbornscreening.perkinelmer.com.

About PerkinElmer

PerkinElmer enables scientists, researchers and clinicians to address their most critical challenges across science and healthcare. With a mission focused on innovating for a healthier world, we deliver unique solutions to serve the diagnostics, life sciences, food and applied markets. We strategically partner with customers to enable earlier and more accurate insights supported by deep market knowledge and technical expertise. Our dedicated team of about 13,000 employees worldwide is passionate about helping customers work to create healthier families, improve the quality of life, and sustain the wellbeing and longevity of people globally. The Company reported revenue of approximately $2.8 billion in 2018, serves customers in more than 150 countries, and is a component of the S&P 500 index. Additional information is available through 1-877-PKI-NYSE, or at http://www.perkinelmer.com.

1 Connolly AM, Zaidman CM, Golumbek PT, Cradock MM, Flanigan KM, Kuntz NL, Finkel RS, McDonald CM, Iannaccone ST, Anand P, Siener CA, Florence JM, Lowes LP, Alfano LN, Johnson LB, Nicorici A, Nelson LL, Mendell JR. (2019). Twice weekly Glucocorticosteroids in Infants and Young boys with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy: Steroids in young boys with DMD. Muscle & Nerve. 10.1002/mus.26441.2 Moat SJ, Korpimki T, Furu P, Hakala H, Polari H, Meri L, Mkinen P, Weeks I. Characterization of a blood spot creatine kinase skeletal muscle isoform immunoassay for high-throughput newborn screening of Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Clin Chem 2017;63:908-14.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20191213005240/en/

Contacts

Brian Willinskybrian.willinsky@perkinelmer.com +1-781-663-5728

More here:
PerkinElmer Launches First FDA-Approved Assay Kit to Screen for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy in Newborns - Yahoo Finance

Despite its relatively recent arrival into the world of MMA, Hard Knocks 365 is no more.

The Florida-based gym founded by Henri Hooft and Greg Jones in 2017 quickly established itself as one of MMAs premier super teams. In particular, 2019 has been particularly successful with Kamaru Usman becoming UFC welterweight king, Aung La N Sang continuing his reign atop of ONEs middleweight and light heavyweight divisions, and prospects including Adam Borics and Logan Storley showing impressive development.

However, it was recently announced that, following a takeover by health giant Sanford Health, Hard Knocks 365 is no more. Not only is the team in the process of constructing another gym in Deerfield Beach, Florida, it has also rebranded as Sanford MMA.

The Body Locks John Hyon Ko recently spoke to two men who will undoubtedly benefit from these changes, ONE champions Aung La N Sang and Martin Nguyen, and its safe to say, theyre very excited.

Theres no more Hard Knocks, Nguyen said. Our team got sponsored by Sanford Health which is a huge health company. Were now sponsored by them and well get top of the range medical assistance; weve got doctors following us around. Everything is on hand; weve got a brand-new gym set up in Florida. I cant wait to see it. The name is now Sanford MMA, theres no more Hard Knocks 365.

Aung La N Sang echoed that sentiment. Its gonna change the game for sure man, our facility is awesome, N Sang said. I went there today and its amazing. Three times the size of what it was. There were about two dozen rooms at the back for medical attention and recovery. I cant get hurt now!

Nguyen also revealed that, as far as he is aware, the new facility will become the primary destination for the teams premier athletes. Footage has already shown that the new gym might be the state-of-the-art gym in MMA and for fighters like Kamaru Usman, Michael Chandler, and Vicente Lique, this can only benefit performance. The old facility will become home to a development team with a goal of creating the next generation of Sanford MMA fighters, something Nguyen is incredibly excited about.

From what I understand, through Henri explaining it, the Hard Knocks gym is still going to be there, Nguyen said. Itll just be called Sanford MMA. Thats going to be our training center for our development team which theyre going to build.

The other gym will be for the higher-tier guys. In terms of creating that next generation, theyll still be training with the top guys on some days, but itll also give them that little itch to try and step up to that next level and step up their training. I think that the development team is going to be awesome.

With an impressive platform already built by Henry Hooft and Greg Jones, this rebrand and sponsorship can only offer further benefits to the fight team. Sanford Health has been involved in sport for some time, providing performance and recovery services for NFL players including Carson Wentz, Kyle Rudolph, and Adam Thielen, a program called Sanford POWER.

While Hard Knocks 365 already boasted outstanding MMA and strength and conditioning services, access to state-of-the-art health facilities and expert medical professionals will certainly be an added bonus. In particular, Dr. Bradley Reeves has worked with countless Sanford MMA fighters already, and Nguyen considers him a significant asset to the team.

He follows us around every bout now to make sure were all medically cleared and that everything is under control, Nguyen said.Post-bout, we always get checked by him and since starting to work with him, I feel unbelievable.

Its the little things that count the most and were blessed to have him on our team. Everything is on hand. Whatever he needs, whatever we need when it comes to recovery and post-flight checks. Its crazy.

Aung La N Sang also commented on the relief of having Dr. Reeves by his side. He fixed Robbie Lawlers knee, the torn MCL, he was able to put it back together, N Sang said. Luke Rockhold had his shin injury and Dr. Reeves was able to fix that too.

For me, its a relief; especially as I get older, we do have more injuries, and this is rejuvenating. I have this great team of guys behind me. I know I can go out there and do my best and perform better than before.

Founded in 1894, Sanford Health is a health-care provider based in the Dakotas, Minnesota, and Nebraska. Its work primarily concerns five areas: cancer, childrens heart, orthopedics, sports medicine, and womens health, and this sponsorship marks a deepening involvement in MMA for the company.

Over the last few years, Sanford Health doctors have conducted significant and research into concussion, and have worked with fighters to do so; this deal offers a chance for the organization to improve the current protocol. Sanford Health is also interested in refining procedures involving the time fighters take to recover following fights, likely an area that needs significant improvement. Dr. Reeves described the deal as the culmination of several years of putting an effort into MMA and getting ourselves in a position to enhance the sport and to also work with world-class athletes.

In a sport where injury, concussion, and brain damage are constantly issues of concern, having a huge health care organization involved in the improvement of procedure can surely only benefit fighters. Where issues may arise is if Sanford Health begins using team fighters in studies on concussion and fighter safety, with some expressing concern about health care organizations sponsoring research subjects.

In an interview with the West Central Tribune, Dr. Carl Elliot expressed concern about the deal, saying Youre not just investing in a sport where youre taking care of your own players. Youre helping them beat their opponents senseless, which seems a little contrary to the mission of medicine. For now, however, no plans exist for such research to take place.

Throughout 2019, Henri Hooft and Greg Jones team has already established itself as one of the premier destinations for MMA talent. However, one of the characteristics that set the elite gyms apart from the average ones is longevity and this partnership with Sanford Health seems to offer a path to achieving that, not just through the provision of excellent facilities, but also through the creation of the development team.

Link:
Hard Knocks 365 rebrands to Sanford MMA with sponsorship from Sanford Health - The Body Lock

11.21.19

A recent article by The Harvard Gazette highlights the work of Dr. Sharon Inouye, a faculty member of Harvard Medical School and advisor to the Healthy Longevity Global Grand Challenge design committee. Learn more here: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/11/grand-challenge-encourages-innovation-in-aging/

Aging is a global phenomenon. By 2030, the number of people age 60 and over will reach 1.4 billion[1], with older people projected to outnumber children for the first time in U.S. history[2]. Today, thanks to increased longevity, we have...

BY John HAAGA, Director, Division of Behavioral and Social Research,Division of Behavioral and Social Research, National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health John PHILLIPS, Chief, Population and Social Processes Branch,Division of Behavioral and Social Research, National Institute on Aging,...

Japan - AMED in collaboration with the U.S. National Academy of Medicine and seven other global organizations, today announced that it has joined the Healthy Longevity Global Grand Challenge, a multiyear international challenge seeking breakthrough innovations to extend human health...

Read the original here:
The official site of the Healthy Longevity Global Grand ...

Dmitry Kaminskiy speaks as though he were trying to unload everything he knows about the science and economics of longevityfrom senolytics research that seeks to stop aging cells from spewing inflammatory proteins and other molecules to the trillion-dollar life extension industry that he and his colleagues are trying to fosterin one sitting.

At the heart of the discussion with Singularity Hub is the idea that artificial intelligence will be the engine that drives breakthroughs in how we approach healthcare and healthy aginga concept with little traction even just five years ago.

At that time, it was considered too futuristic that artificial intelligence and data science might be more accurate compared to any hypothesis of human doctors, said Kaminskiy, co-founder and managing partner at Deep Knowledge Ventures, an investment firm that is betting big on AI and longevity.

How times have changed. Artificial intelligence in healthcare is attracting more investments and deals than just about any sector of the economy, according to data research firm CB Insights. In the most recent third quarter, AI healthcare startups raised nearly $1.6 billion, buoyed by a $550 million mega-round from London-based Babylon Health, which uses AI to collect data from patients, analyze the information, find comparable matches, then make recommendations.

Even without the big bump from Babylon Health, AI healthcare startups raised more than $1 billion last quarter, including two companies focused on longevity therapeutics: Juvenescence and Insilico Medicine.

The latter has risen to prominence for its novel use of reinforcement learning and general adversarial networks (GANs) to accelerate the drug discovery process. Insilico Medicine recently published a seminal paper that demonstrated how such an AI system could generate a drug candidate in just 46 days. Co-founder and CEO Alex Zhavoronkov said he believes there is no greater goal in healthcare todayor, really, any venturethan extending the healthy years of the human lifespan.

I dont think that there is anything more important than that, he told Singularity Hub, explaining that an unhealthy society is detrimental to a healthy economy. I think that its very, very important to extend healthy, productive lifespan just to fix the economy.

The surge of interest in longevity is coming at a time when life expectancy in the US is actually dropping, despite the fact that we spend more money on healthcare than any other nation.

A new paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that after six decades of gains, life expectancy for Americans has decreased since 2014, particularly among young and middle-aged adults. While some of the causes are societal, such as drug overdoses and suicide, others are health-related.

While average life expectancy in the US is 78, Kaminskiy noted that healthy life expectancy is about ten years less.

To Zhavoronkovs point about the economy (a topic of great interest to Kaminskiy as well), the US spent $1.1 trillion on chronic diseases in 2016, according to a report from the Milken Institute, with diabetes, cardiovascular conditions, and Alzheimers among the most costly expenses to the healthcare system. When the indirect costs of lost economic productivity are included, the total price tag of chronic diseases in the US is $3.7 trillion, nearly 20 percent of GDP.

So this is the major negative feedback on the national economy and creating a lot of negative social [and] financial issues, Kaminskiy said.

That has convinced Kaminskiy that an economy focused on extending healthy human lifespansincluding the financial instruments and institutions required to support a long-lived populationis the best way forward.

He has co-authored a book on the topic with Margaretta Colangelo, another managing partner at Deep Knowledge Ventures, which has launched a specialized investment fund, Longevity.Capital, focused on the longevity industry. Kaminskiy estimates that there are now about 20 such investment funds dedicated to funding life extension companies.

In November at the inaugural AI for Longevity Summit in London, he and his collaborators also introduced the Longevity AI Consortium, an academic-industry initiative at Kings College London. Eventually, the research center will include an AI Longevity Accelerator program to serve as a bridge between startups and UK investors.

Deep Knowledge Ventures has committed about 7 million ($9 million) over the next three years to the accelerator program, as well as establishing similar consortiums in other regions of the world, according to Franco Cortese, a partner at Longevity.Capital and director of the Aging Analytics Agency, which has produced a series of reports on longevity.

One of the most recent is an overview of Biomarkers for Longevity. A biomarker, in the case of longevity, is a measurable component of health that can indicate a disease state or a more general decline in health associated with aging. Examples range from something as simple as BMI as an indicator of obesity, which is associated with a number of chronic diseases, to sophisticated measurements of telomeres, the protective ends of chromosomes that shorten as we age.

While some researchers are working on moonshot therapies to reverse or slow agingwith a few even arguing we could expand human life on the order of centuriesKaminskiy said he believes understanding biomarkers of aging could make more radical interventions unnecessary.

In this vision of healthcare, people would be able to monitor their health 24-7, with sensors attuned to various biomarkers that could indicate the onset of everything from the flu to diabetes. AI would be instrumental in not just ingesting the billions of data points required to develop such a system, but also what therapies, treatments, or micro-doses of a drug or supplement would be required to maintain homeostasis.

Consider it like Tesla with many, many detectors, analyzing the behavior of the car in real time, and a cloud computing system monitoring those signals in real time with high frequency, Kaminskiy explained. So the same shall be applied for humans.

And only sophisticated algorithms, Kaminskiy argued, can make longevity healthcare work on a mass scale but at the individual level. Precision medicine becomes preventive medicine. Healthcare truly becomes a system to support health rather than a way to fight disease.

Image Credit: Photo byh heyerleinonUnsplash

See the original post here:
Why AI Will Be the Best Tool for Extending Our Longevity - Singularity Hub

Visit the News Hub

Long life study explores genetics of extreme longevity

A new grant from the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) supports research into the mysteries of extreme longevity. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis are leading the Long Life Family Study, which includes several generations of families with unusual concentrations of long-lived individuals. The goal is to uncover genetic factors that play roles in long life spans.

Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has received a $68 million grant to investigate and discover what contributes to extreme longevity. The researchers are studying hundreds of families over several generations with individuals who have had exceptionally long lives. Many of these families have unusual concentrations of people living to at least age 100.

The goal of the Long Life Family Study, funded by the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is to identify genetic factors that contribute to exceptional longevity. Such information could lead to new therapeutics or other health innovations to help people live longer, healthier lives.

These families provide a unique opportunity for finding genetic links to long life spans, said principal investigator Michael A. Province, PhD, a Washington University professor of genetics. Remarkably, many study participants in the older generations are unusually healthy for their ages. We think we will find clues in their DNA that suggest how they might be protected from common diseases, such as diabetes or Alzheimers disease or, at the very least, uncover genetic factors that might delay the onset of these health problems.

The School of Medicine is the coordinating center for the project, which has field centers at Boston University, Columbia University, the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Southern Denmark. Province and Mary K. Wojczynski, PhD, an assistant professor of genetics at Washington University, lead the primary site and coordinate collaborations among the field sites and the University of Minnesota, where the laboratory for analyzing blood samples is located.

The study includes almost 5,000 individuals from three generations of 539 families across the United States and Denmark, first recruited from 2006 through 2009. The average age of representatives of the oldest generation in the study was 90 at that time, with some individuals exceeding 110. Those in the second generation of these families now average over 70 years of age, and the grandchildren of the oldest group are now in their 50s, on average. Studying multiple generations of families with histories of long lives presents the opportunity to study individuals who have a greater chance of reaching older ages. In particular, it provides the ability to study such individuals when they are younger and not yet obviously different from those with shorter life spans.

When we study long-lived people, we would really like to be able to travel back in time and study them before they reach older ages to see how they might differ from the general population when those differences might not yet be obvious, Province said. Our earlier findings from this study have shown that individuals in the second generation are healthier, on average, than individuals from families with more typical longevity, when measured, for example, in middle age. But these healthier traits vary by family. For example, some long-lived families might tend to have lower blood pressure while others might have better cognition into later life, and still others might have better lung function or grip strength. Across these families, there is no single factor that stands out as the main reason for the long health and life spans.

The researchers suspect this variability may be linked to specific rare genetic variants that may protect such families from the harmful effects of aging in a variety of ways. The new funding will support whole genome sequencing of study participants in an effort to identify special protective variations in the DNA.

The researchers also will study the consequences of such differences in DNA through analyzing what effects they might have on the proteins, metabolites and other molecules that have a direct impact on the bodys biology. Such measures change with age, and the researchers are interested in comparing these with more average populations over their life spans. The comparison group is composed of participants from the well-known Framingham Heart Study, which has been tracking the health of multiple generations of families living in Framingham, Mass., since that study began in 1948. The researchers said less than 1% of families participating in the Framingham Heart Study meet the longevity criteria of the Long Life Family Study.

One genetic characteristic that stands out in some but not all long-lived families is the length of telomeres, or the end caps on chromosomes that protect the DNA from damage. Every time a cell divides, the telomeres get a little shorter, and shorter telomeres have been associated with chronic diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease, dementia and other disorders common among elderly people. Long-lived families seem to have longer than average telomeres.

Telomere length might be one key component of healthy aging, Province said. There is evidence that healthy behaviors like exercise can protect telomere length or even extend it. But there is a genetic component to it as well. Some people just naturally have longer telomeres, or at least appear to have resilient telomeres. And that is the case in many of the families were studying. Based on that data, we have honed in on a gene that could be involved in telomere length, and this new grant will help us explore that possibility and other new avenues further.

Washington University School of Medicines 1,500 faculty physicians also are the medical staff of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Childrens hospitals. The School of Medicine is a leader in medical research, teaching and patient care, ranking among the top 10 medical schools in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Childrens hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare.

More here:
Families with long, healthy life spans focus of $68 million grant - Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis