Featured series 
Tag: Aging
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Nation & World
Mediterranean diet has marked impact on aging
Researchers at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital have found that greater adherence to the Mediterranean diet was associated with longer telomeres, which serve as a biomarker for aging.
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Nation & World
Preoccupied with life
Harvard-affiliated surgeon and writer Atul Gawande explores big questions around end-of-life care in “Being Mortal.”
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Nation & World
Managing an aging populace
Aging, health care, and the challenges facing the globe’s women were the focus of a symposium marking the 50th anniversary of the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies.
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Nation & World
Making old hearts younger
Two Harvard Stem Cell Institute researchers have identified a protein in the blood of mice and humans that may prove to be the first effective treatment for the form of age-related heart failure that affects millions of Americans, a study says.
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Nation & World
Lessons from the long-lived
A gerontologist researcher says his work allows him to connect with “vibrant, engaged, healthy, exciting, and active older people.” He says they live more in the now than other people might believe, and value that.
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Nation & World
Life lessons from an old worm
Research is uncovering the genetic roots of aging, peeling back the once common understanding that creatures simply “wore out” as they aged, and slowly revealing the mechanisms that control a process determined by our genes and that proceeds at different speeds for different species.
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Nation & World
Pondering health, at home and abroad
The world is in the midst of a global health transition, with the population growing older and primary health threats coming from chronic, not infectious, diseases, according to speakers at an Advanced Leadership Initiative think tank.
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Nation & World
Fountain of Youth – Innovation at Harvard
Our bodies repair and regenerate with the help of compound structures at the end of chromosomes called telomeres. But as these telomeres weaken, we age. Harvard swimmer Meaghan Leddy COL ’12 explains how Harvard scientists are exploring ways to reverse the symptoms of aging by increasing the levels of a certain enzyme to keep our…
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Nation & World
Decoding keys to a healthy life
Now 74 years young, the Harvard Study of Adult Development continues to yield a treasure trove of data about how people behave, and change — including predictions of strong indicators to a happy life.
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Nation & World
Age-related effects of MS may prove reversible
In a new study, Harvard stem cell researchers and scientists at the University of Cambridge have found that the age-related degeneration in conditions such as multiple sclerosis (MS) may be reversible.
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Nation & World
Cut calories, increase egg quality
A strategy that has been shown to reduce age-related health problems in several animal studies may also combat a major cause of age-associated infertility and birth defects.
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Nation & World
The Aging Intellect
In this important book, Douglas H. Powell, a clinical instructor in psychology, discusses lifestyle habits and attitudes linked to cognitive aging, and provides evidence-based strategies to minimize mental decline.
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Nation & World
A lifelong love of African art
The Peabody Museum’s Monni Adams, 90, continues to research and publish in her field, now focusing on African masks.
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Nation & World
The ‘core pathway’ of aging
Harvard researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have identified the root molecular cause of a variety of ills brought on by advanced age, including waning energy, failure of the heart and other organs, and metabolic disorder.
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Nation & World
Scholars venerable
Retired Harvard faculty, some with astonishing personal stories, are windows onto a vanishing past, even as many continue to work in their fields.
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Nation & World
Partial reversal of aging achieved in mice
Harvard scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute say they have for the first time partially reversed age-related degeneration in mice, resulting in new growth of the brain and testes, improved fertility, and the return of a lost cognitive function.
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Nation & World
Probing the golden years
In an aging society, Harvard researchers are plumbing the depths of what it means to have a larger proportion of the population elderly — and figuring out how to keep them healthy.
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Nation & World
Insights on healthy aging
New research from Harvard scientists shows that exercise and caloric restriction rejuvenate synapses in laboratory mice, illuminating a reason for the beneficial effects of these regimens on aging.
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Nation & World
Exercise, calorie restrictions can rejuvenate older synapses
Harvard researchers have uncovered a mechanism in mice through which caloric restriction and exercise delay some of the debilitating effects of aging by rejuvenating the connections between nerves and the muscles that they control.
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Nation & World
A long look at growing old
The Glenn Laboratories hosted the annual symposium on aging, reviewing new developments in understanding the mechanisms of growing old.
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Nation & World
Stem Cell Experiment Reverses Aging In Rare Disease
The team at Children’s Hospital Boston and the Harvard Stem Cell Institute were working with a new type of cell called induced pluripotent stem cells or iPS cells, which closely resemble embryonic stem cells but are made from ordinary skin cells…
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Nation & World
National Institute on Aging funds two new “Roybal Center” programs at Harvard
Harvard Medical School professor Nicholas Christakis, whose work focuses on social networks, and economics professor David Laibson, who examines how and why people make the decisions they do regarding savings…
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Nation & World
Blood tells old cells to act young
Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) researchers at the Joslin Diabetes Center (JDC) have taken a major step toward eventually understanding — and perhaps slowing — the aging process. In a series…
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Nation & World
The Third Chapter: Passion, Risk, and Adventure in the 25 Years After 50
Sociologist Lawrence-Lightfoot’s inspiring book says that ages 50-75 are prime time for adventure. Forty interviews with people living in their “third chapter” show how fulfilling life can be then.
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Nation & World
Telomerase work wins Szostak Nobel Prize in medicine
Jack W. Szostak, a genetics professor at Harvard Medical School and Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), has won the 2009 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for work on cellular structures called telomeres, which protect chromosomes from degradation.
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Nation & World
Researchers learn how mutations extend life span
In the sense that organisms existing today are connected through a chain of life – through their parents, grandparents, and other ancestors – almost a billion years back to the…
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Nation & World
DFCI cancer research highlights age-related treatment effectiveness, patient cost concerns
New research from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute highlights age-related responses to colon cancer treatment and patient attitudes toward cost of drugs to manage side effects. Research presented at the American…
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Nation & World
Lack of sleep is easier on older adults than others
In a recent sleep study testing alertness and performance in sleep-deprived adults, researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) determined that healthy older adults handle sleep deprivation better than younger adults. The findings appeared online on May 3, in an advance online edition of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
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Nation & World
Older adults found to fare better under sleep deprivation than younger adults
In a recent sleep study testing alertness and performance in sleep-deprived adults, researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) determined that healthy older adults handle sleep deprivation better than younger…
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Nation & World
Waist size predictor of heart failure in men and women
Adding to the growing evidence that a person’s waist size is an important indicator of heart health, a study led by investigators at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) has found that larger waist circumference is associated with increased risk of heart failure in middle-aged and older populations of men and women.