Medicine & Health

Scientists at the School of Medicine have identified a previously unknown route for cellular fuel delivery, a finding that could shed light on the process of aging and the chronic diseases that often accompany it.

New research at the School of Medicine suggests that aging immune cells increase the risk for age-related macular degeneration, a major cause of blindness in the United States.

Marylen Mann is the founder of OASIS a nationwide program to help seniors remain active and engaged in their communities even after retirement.

Scientists at the School of Medicine have shown that supplementing healthy mice with a natural compound called NMN can compensate for a loss of energy production in aging cells, reducing typical signs of aging such as gradual weight gain, loss of insulin sensitivity and declines in physical activity.

More than half of older adults with clinical depression don’t get better when treated with an antidepressant. But results from a multicenter clinical trial that included Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis indicates that adding a second drug — an antipsychotic medication — to the treatment regimen helps many of those patients.

An enzyme secreted by the body’s fat tissue controls energy levels in the brain, according to new research led by Shin-ichiro Imai, MD, PhD, of the School of Medicine. The findings, in mice, underscore a role for the body’s fat tissue in controlling the brain’s response to food scarcity, and suggest there is an optimal amount of body fat for maximizing health and longevity.

Nancy Morrow-Howell, PhD, is a national leader in gerontology, widely known for her work on productive and civic engagement of older adults. She is also the Bettie Bofinger Brown Distinguished Professor of Social Policy at the Brown School, faculty director of productive aging research at the  Center for Social Development and director of the Harvey A. Friedman Center for Aging, part of the Institute for Public Health, all at Washington University in St. Louis.

Researchers have identified the mechanism by which a specific sirtuin protein called Sirt1 (shown in green) operates in the brain to bring about a significant delay in aging and an increase in longevity.

For many older adults, the aging process seems to go hand-in-hand with an annoying increase in clumsiness. New research from Washington University in St. Louis suggests some of these reaching-and-grabbing difficulties may be caused by changes in the mental frame of reference that older adults use to visualize nearby objects.

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have restored normal blood sugar metabolism in diabetic mice using a compound the body makes naturally. The finding suggests that it may one day be possible for people to take the compound much like a daily vitamin as a way to treat or even prevent type 2 diabetes.