‘SuperAgers’ over 80 share strong memory and social lifestyles, Northwestern study finds
Sel Yackley is an occupied woman.
She makes jewelry, sings in a choir and knit hats and scarves for the homeless. She also reads with her reading club, goes to the gymnasium several times a week and is active in several civic organizations. According to her fitbit, she still manages to sleep on average 7 hours and a half per night.
At 85, Yackley is a “superage”. In other words, someone who is 80 years old or more and retains the memory capacity – on the basis of a delayed word reminder test – of a person at least two to three decades less.
Dr. M. Marsemamlam, who founded the Mesulam Center for Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer’s disease at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in the late 1990s, first defined a Supergero. Researchers from the Mesulam Center thought about a quarter -century study of superage in an analysis published Thursday in Alzheimer’s and dementia: the newspaper of the Alzheimer’s association.
Yackley, which is one of the nearly 300 people who have participated in the Northwestern University Superaging Program (Nusap) since 2000, is proof that altered memory is not always a characteristic of aging.
“We are going to be models for other people who age,” she said. “Take good care of your health and eat well and be sociable.”
Is superage genetic?
Yackley, a longtime chicago from Türkiye, recognizes that genetic factors can contribute to its young cognition. His mother and father lived respectively at 86 and 88 years old. On the other hand, Yackley feels that his joie de vivre helps to keep his mind lively.
“I think it is partly your determination to live a long life and your activities that allow you to do so,” she said, encouraging the elderly to continue “things that make you proud”.
According to Tamar Gefen, co-author of the analysis and associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences of the Feinberg School.
“I do not know if these are necessarily social connections, these are only connections in general,” said Gefen. “There are people who are connected to the earth, there are people who are connected to their ancestry, people who are connected to their grandchildren, who are linked to their art.”
Gefen added: “You do not see many detached Superaises.”
That said, people can’t just “superacir”.
In the United States, more than 7 million people live with Alzheimer’s disease, according to the Alzheimer’s association, a statistic which should go up to nearly 13 million by 2050. About 1 people out of 9 65 and over have this most common form of dementia.
At 45, the lifetime risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease is 1 in 5 for women and 1 in 10 for men. The superages challenge these chances.
“Genetics is one of them, definitively,” said Gefen. “We know that there are major risk genes for Alzheimer’s disease and that the Superages do not have these genes.”
For example, research has shown that people of European origin with two copies of a gene called APOE4 have 60% chance of developing Alzheimer’s disease at 85.
“My interest is, are there any genes that the Superaises house which can really protect them against obtaining Alzheimer’s disease?” Said Gefen. “And is there a gene, let’s say that it is linked to the immune system, which is overexpressed in the superages which can be manipulated and then help individuals to protect themselves?”
While she continues to seek such answers, Gefen said that the most exciting discoveries of his team come from deceased superragers’ brain.
The brains of the superages can be built differently
Gefen and his colleagues from the Mesulam Center have autopsied nearly 80 brain to superage and compared them to those of their “neurotypical” peers. They focused on two Alzheimer’s indicators: protein accumulations in the brain called amyloid plates and tau tangles.
“What we have found in the memory centers of the Supergian brain is that there are much fewer Tau tangles,” said Gefen. “But it is interesting to note that amyloid or plate pathology does not really differ much.”
Because a certain number of Alzheimer’s treatments distinguish amyloid plates, the Supergesters question these treatment methods, Gefen said: “Calker really the right target if the Superages and their peers have similar quantities of amyloid?”
Other results include that superaries tend to have more important entorhinal neurons, which are nerve cells that are essential to memory, and more von Economo neurons, which are essential nerve cells to social behavior.
“Our supposition is that [SuperAgers] were probably born with these types of structural protections, “said Gefen.” But we are now going very deeply in the molecular mechanisms of the cell in order to understand what maintains this strong cell. “”
Dr. Timothy Chang, who was not involved in superage research, works at the opposite end of the spectrum. Deputy Professor of Neurology at the Mary S. Easton Center for Alzheimer’s Research and Care at the UCLA, STUDIES SHANS and sees patients with dementia.
The analysis of “aberrant populations” such as superages is precious for the medical field, he said.
“These cases are really interesting,” said Chang. “They can teach us a lot about how, potentially, these people, on the basis of genetics or other lifestyle factors, have been able to avoid the disease.”
Superries live in the laboratory
Yackley visited Northwestern’s brain bank, where it is “proud” of its own brain will one day be sent to study. She also plans to give the rest of her body to science.
“I hope maybe my heart or my kidneys can be used for transplantation,” said Yackley. “I don’t want to be underground.”
In the meantime, Yackley would be grateful to go to 90, she said. It maintains a list of tasks and aims to connect about 4,200 steps per day. The retired journalist, travel agent and author of the Memoirs is already at work on her next company.
“I try to create an album of my life, and it’s a big project,” said Yackley.
Although the prevalence of the Superages is not clear, they seem rare. Gefen and his co-authors noted that during the initial recruitment of the study participants, only 10% met the criteria of the Superages. Today, 101 Superaises aged 81 to 111 are actively involved in the search for the Mesulalam Center.
Not all of the Suprerages give priority to their health – on the contrary, some savor their vices with challenge – and many have lived a difficult life, said Gefen. But they do not hold their cognitive form for granted.
“These Superries know that they have a gift,” said Gefen.
