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Ageing
Published in Henry J. Woodford, Essential Geriatrics, 2022
In a scientific sense, ageing is the accumulation of cellular damage over time that leads to a generalised decline in function and an increased probability of death. It is a complex multi-factorial process, which happens to all of us, although there is much inter-individual variation in the manner and timing of its presentation. This is seen as differences in ‘biological' and ‘chronological' age – you can't judge an age by its number. Gerontology is the study of the ageing process. It is sometimes further divided into ‘biogerontology' (the cellular changes) and ‘social gerontology' (the impact on demographics and society).
Designing for palliative care
Published in Stephen Verderber, Ben J. Refuerzo, Innovations in Hospice Architecture, 2019
Stephen Verderber, Ben J. Refuerzo
By 2050 a new field will have caused these assumptions to be reappraised. Work in anti-aging, increasingly referred to as agelessness, will have emerged within biogerontology, a discipline whose aim is to advance existing scientific knowledge on the biological and social dimensions of aging. In scientific circles, such as in the cryonics community or in immortality institute forums, the term ‘physical immortality’ will come to denote invulnerable agelessness, or freedom from the degenerative effects of aging. For the casual observer and nearly every mainstream healthcare professional, this definition accurately, albeit, in oversimplified terms, will describe the ultimate goal of all medical science: the prevention or curing of all disease, disability, and degeneration, thus allowing people to live in perfect health for as long as they desire.57
Senescence
Published in Nate F. Cardarelli, The Thymus in Health and Senescence, 2019
As Sacher has so aptly stated in 1978, there are three basic questions of biogerontology:191Why do we grow old?Why do we live as long as we do?Why do we die?
Echoes of William Gowers’s concept of abiotrophy
Published in Journal of the History of the Neurosciences, 2022
Gilberto Levy, Bruce Levin, Eliasz Engelhardt
American biologist Raymond Pearl (1879–1940), regarded as one of the founders of biogerontology, published extensively on the subject of longevity (Jennings 1942); in one of his papers, he used “the term vitality, in a general sense, to mean the degree of intensity of vital actions” and treated it as a quantitative notion (Pearl 1927). In a book tellingly titled Vitality and Aging, Fries and Crapo (1981) examined the implications of the “rectangularization” of the mortality curve, which is of great public-health relevance for aging societies, especially through the compression of morbidity hypothesis (Fries 1980). In the field of biodemography, Li and Anderson (2009) described a “vitality model” aimed at understanding population survival and demographic heterogeneity. As we will argue, these points of contact through the notion of vitality are not to say that abiotrophy simply means premature aging—a commonly held view, as shown in several preceding quotes, which is additionally suggested by the following semantic distinction in Adams and Victor’s (1985, 450) textbook: “The process of decline or decay that occurs in all organ systems of the body after middle life is called involution; unexpected, premature decay of any given tissue or cell population has been termed abiotrophy.”
Geriatric rehabilitation. From bedside to curbside
Published in Neuropsychological Rehabilitation, 2019
There are a few things that often go with the textbook territory: it is rather dense, and there are few illustrations, none in colour. The rationale for the use of the word of “curbside” in the subtitle eludes me. It is clearly written for a US audience, such as the chapter on the specific processes used in Medicare- and Medicaid-funded rehabilitation, which limits its value elsewhere. The book’s focus on geriatric rehabilitation as opposed to geriatric medicine means that aspects of care home medicine and the palliative and end of life aspects of the latter are not covered in the same level of depth as other topics. The focus on clinical practice is perhaps at the expense of the underlying theoretical aspects of the practice of geriatric medicine. I found the chapters on social gerontology and demography, biogerontology, ethics and frailty a little thin. I also found the style rather traditional and doctor-focussed. For example, the chapter on pain management leaves psychosocial management to a few lines at the end. The book begins by noting that the term “older people” is preferred to “the elderly”, but largely uses the latter term as if to dismiss concerns about “the elderly” as politically correct—and the title unashamedly uses another word disliked by the potential recipients of this style of care, “geriatric”.
Personalized Nutrition: Translating the Science of NutriGenomics Into Practice: Proceedings From the 2018 American College of Nutrition Meeting
Published in Journal of the American College of Nutrition, 2019
Okezie I Aruoma, Sharon Hausman-Cohen, Jessica Pizano, Michael A. Schmidt, Deanna M. Minich, Yael Joffe, Sebastian Brandhorst, Simon J. Evans, David M. Brady
The “fasting-mimicking diet” (FMD), a periodic, short-term, low-calorie, and low-protein dietary intervention, is a nutrition-based program focused on health and longevity (54–58). The FMD promotes cellular protection, regeneration, and rejuvenation of multiple organs and systems in old mice, thereby reducing chronic disease incidence and extending health span. In a randomized crossover-style clinical trial that included 100 generally healthy participants, the FMD reduced body weight and trunk and total body fat, lowered blood pressure, and decreased insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1) in all subjects who completed the trial. A post hoc analysis demonstrated that biomarkers associated with cardiovascular disease risk such as body mass index, blood pressure, fasting glucose, triglycerides, total and LDL cholesterol, and C-reactive protein were more beneficially affected in participants at risk for disease than in subjects who were not at risk (58). In the main, biogerontology research links nutrition, genes, chronic disease, and longevity and thereby provides the foundation for nutrition-based approaches to prolong healthy aging.