Optispan CEO Matt Kaeberlein takes questions about healthy aging.

Check out the links below for further information and/or reading about some of the things we discussed in this podcast episode. Note that we do not necessarily endorse or agree with the content of these readings, but present them as supplementary material that may deepen your understanding of the topic after you listen to our podcast. This list is in no way exhaustive, but it’s a good start!

Hallmarks of aging: An expanding Universe

This paper proposes twelve hallmarks of aging and extends the work of the original 2013 paper outlining nine hallmarks of aging. The framework of “aging hallmarks”—that is, specific and identifiable molecular mechanisms or alterations that accompany the aging process—has provided a useful paradigm for understanding how certain biochemical changes form the essence of aging and of the disease and disability that accompanies it. However, we still don’t know a lot about the hierarchy of these hallmarks’ impact on the aging process or how they might interact with each other, and the evidence linking them to age-related disease is mostly correlative.

A Reimagined Research Strategy for Aging

In another manifestation of the idea that several processes underpin the biological aging process, the SENS Research Foundation describes seven types of cellular and molecular damage that occur with age.

Inside Science: Introducing the Test of Rapamycin in Aging Dogs

Dogs are useful animals for helping us understand aging: they share an environment with humans, get similar diseases of aging, and suffer from elevated disease risk with age. Dogs can live for fewer than ten years or well into their teens, a lifespan that enables us to observe the impact of interventions far more quickly than we can in humans, who live for much longer. The Dog Aging Project, a long-term multi-institute study of how dogs age, is examining the effect of the FDA-approved immunosuppressant drug Rapamycin on healthy aging in dogs.

Optispan CEO Matt Kaeberlein is a co-founder of the Dog Aging Project.

Ultra-processed foods and how to identify them

While most of the foods we consume are processed to at least a small degree, some processed foods are worse for you than others. This paper describes pragmatic and simple ways to identify whether a given food is “ultra-processed”—that is, made using specific ingredients and manufacturing processes designed to create low-cost, long shelf-life, convenient, and hyperpalatable foods.

Lifelong Physical Exercise Delays Age-Associated Skeletal Muscle Decline

You’ve probably heard that exercise is good for you, but don’t just take anyone’s word for it—check out the literature for yourself. This is one of many (many!) studies demonstrating that exercise works to modulate aging; in this case, by delaying the progression of age-related skeletal muscle degeneration.