Agetech World explores the latest developments in the world of age technology and longevity – from the effects of long-term obesity and biological ageing in young adults to understanding how math can help unlock the body’s hidden blueprint for staying healthy.
Weekly injection could be life changing for Parkinson’s patients
Scientists have developed a long-acting injectable formulation that delivers a steady dose of levodopa and carbidopa – two key medications for Parkinson’s – over an entire week.
This new weekly injectable drug could transform the lives of more than eight million people living with Parkinson’s disease, potentially replacing the need for multiple daily tablets.
The biodegradable formulation is injected under the skin or into muscle tissue, where it gradually releases the medication over seven days.
Lead researcher Professor Sanjay Garg, from UniSA’s Centre for Pharmaceutical Innovation, says the newly developed injectable could significantly improve treatment outcomes and patient adherence.
UniSA PhD student Deepa Nakmode says that, as the in-situ implant is designed to release both levodopa and carbidopa steadily over one week, it helps with maintaining consistent plasma levels and reducing the risks associated with fluctuating drug concentrations.
The injectable gel combines an FDA-approved biodegradable polymer PLGA with Eudragit L-100, a pH-sensitive polymer, to achieve a controlled and sustained drug release.
Study results show that more than 90 per cent of the levodopa dose and more than 81 per cent of the carbidopa dose was released over seven days, and that the implant degraded by over 80 per cent within a week and showed no significant toxicity in cell viability tests.
Garg says the technology could also be adapted for other chronic conditions such as cancer, diabetes, neurodegenerative disorders, pain management, and chronic infections that require long-term drug delivery.
The system can be tuned to release drugs over a period ranging from a few days to several weeks depending on therapeutic needs. The researchers hope to start clinical trials in the near future and are exploring commercialisation opportunities.
Long-term obesity and biological ageing in young adults
In a new, multiple-events case-control study, long-term obesity was found to be associated with the expression of biochemical ageing markers in adults ages 28 to 31, consistent with epigenetic alterations, telomere attrition, chronic inflammation, impaired nutrient sensing, mitochondrial stress, and compromised intercellular communication.
The study looked at 205 participants from a Chilean prospective cohort, and found that long-term obesity was associated with the expression of molecular ageing signatures during young adulthood in females and males, including epigenetic modifications and telomere shortening.
Exposure to long-term obesity was associated with epigenetic age exceeding chronological age by a mean of 15 per cent to 16 per cent, and in some cases, this difference reached 48 per cent.
The authors say that in young adults, chronic health issues may emerge from accelerated biological ageing associated with long-term obesity.
Choline found to be a key player in preserving youthful stem cell traits
Researchers have created the first integrated map detailing the metabolic and molecular changes in human blood stem cells as they age, specialise, or turn cancerous.
The research has identified the nutrient choline as a key player in preserving youthful stem cell traits, and offers insights into stem cell health and disease, suggesting promising directions for nutritional and therapeutic interventions to maintain a healthy blood system.
Choline was found to be high in healthy stem cells but decreased with differentiation, ageing, and leukemia. Supplementing choline in lab experiments helped to restore youthful traits – pointing to new nutritional strategies for stem cell support.
Shifts in lipid composition suggest that ageing and specialised stem cells may alter how they sense and respond to their environment, opening new avenues for exploring how metabolism shapes membrane function, cell communication, and stem cell fate.
Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) are rare cells tucked away in the bone marrow. They hold the unique capability to produce every type of blood cell, from oxygen-carrying red blood cells to infection-fighting immune cells. HSCs are essential for keeping us healthy.
However, as we age or in conditions like leukemia, their remarkable regenerative powers can decline or become disrupted, leaving our blood and immune systems vulnerable to attacks, especially under stress conditions.
“Our lab experiments revealed that choline supplementation boosted lipid production and helped preserve a more youthful, stem-like identity, suggesting that specific nutrients may be key to maintaining stem cell function,” said co-first author Mari Carmen Romero-Mulero.
The study clearly demonstrates that human blood stem cells undergo fundamental metabolic changes as they specialise, age, or become diseased. These shifts can reshape both their identity and behavior.
The data from the Cabezas-Wallscheid lab provide a comprehensive resource for further research into this field. By charting how metabolism guides the fate of human blood stem cells, this study lays the groundwork for future therapies aimed at maintaining stem cell function, helping to keep our blood system healthier for longer.
Lonely adults may have a higher risk of diabetes
Socially isolated older adults are at increased risk of developing diabetes and high blood sugar, according to a new study.
The researchers highlight that social isolation and loneliness have been increasingly recognised as important health risk factors after the COVID-19 pandemic, noting that the study’s findings underscore the importance for clinicians to recognise social isolation as a critical social determinant of health when caring for older patients.
While a few previous studies have explored the connection between social isolation and diabetes, this study is among the first to examine its link to poor glycemic control using a nationally representative sample – data that reflects the broader U.S. population. This makes the findings applicable on a national scale.
The findings showed that socially isolated older adults were 34 per cent more likely to have diabetes and 75 per cent more likely to have poor blood sugar control than those who were not isolated.
This suggests that social isolation may be an important but often overlooked risk factor for diabetes and poor blood sugar management in older adults.
How math can help unlock the body’s hidden blueprint for staying healthy
In a new study, researchers have shown that just five basic rules may explain how the body maintains its complex structures of tissues – such as those in the colon, for example – even as its cells are constantly dying and being replaced.
This research is the product of more than 15 years of collaboration between mathematicians and cancer biologists to unlock the rules that govern tissue structure and cellular behaviour.
“This may be the biological version of a blueprint,” said Bruce Boman, senior research scientist at ChristianaCare’s Cawley Center for Translational Cancer Research and faculty member in the departments of Biological Sciences and Mathematical Sciences at the University of Delaware.
“Just like we have a genetic code that explains how our genes work, we may also have a ‘tissue code’ that explains how our bodies stay so precisely organised over time.”
The researchers used mathematical modeling to see if a small number of rules could account for the highly organised structure of the lining of the colon. That’s an ideal place to study: cells in the colon renew every few days, but the overall shape and structure stays remarkably stable.
After running many simulations and refining their models, the team identified five core biological rules that appear to govern the structure and behaviour of cells:
These included: the timing of cell division; the order in which cells divide; the direction cells divide and move; how many times cells divide; how long a cell lives before it dies.
“These rules work together like choreography,” said Gilberto Schleiniger, professor in the University of Delaware’s Department of Mathematical Sciences.
“They control where cells go, when they divide and how long they stick around, and that’s what keeps tissues looking and working the way they should.”
The researchers believe these rules may apply not just to the colon, but to many different tissues throughout the body such as the skin, liver, and brain.
If true, this “tissue code” could help scientists better understand how tissues heal after injury, how birth defects happen and how diseases like cancer develop when that code gets disrupted.
This work also has important implications for the Human Cell Atlas, a global scientific collaboration working to map every cell type in the human body.
While the Atlas aims to catalogue what each cell is and what it’s doing at a given moment, this new research offers a dynamic framework for understanding how those cells stay organised over time.
By identifying simple, universal rules that govern cell behaviour and tissue structure, the findings could help guide future efforts to not only describe cells, but predict how they behave in health and disease.