The Journals of Gerontology: Series A

BackgroundIntrinsic capacity (IC) is a key marker of healthy ageing, which captures an individuals physical and mental capacities, measured across five domains: cognitive, locomotor, psychological, vitality, and sensory. Although genetic factors are known to influence both general IC and its individual domains, existing IC indices have been developed primarily using phenotypic data, without accounting for the underlying biological architecture across domains. In this study, we developed a multi-...

SHARE, the "Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe", is the largest population-based panel survey among people aged 50+ in 28 European countries and Israel. It investigates health, economic and social circumstances over the life-course to shed light on the challenges of population ageing. From 2004 until 2023, more than 615,000 in-depth interviews with 160,000 respondents have been conducted in nine survey waves. Health is crucial to understand ageing. Gold-standard measures are base...

Abstract/SummaryFinancial exploitation of older adults is an increasingly prevalent public health concern, yet few have characterized fraud prevalence longitudinally or evaluated whether financial exploitation vulnerability measures prospectively predict fraud outcomes. Using data from the Health and Retirement Study, we examined fraud prevalence across a 14-year period and tested whether the Perceived Financial Vulnerability Scale (PFVS) predicts subsequent fraud victimization among older adult...

Biomarkers of aging, particularly DNA methylation-based clocks, have shown promise as tools to assess whether interventions may impact the rate of biological aging. Among possible interventions physical exercise has shown protective effects against many age-associated diseases, while time-restricted feeding (TRF), has shown metabolic benefits in preclinical models. The combined effect of exercise and TRF on aging biomarkers remains largely unexplored. In this 52-week four-armed, randomized, cont...

BackgroundThere is growing consensus regarding the multidimensional nature of frailty and the need for comprehensive approaches to its assessment. However, existing assessment instruments have shown limited validity evidence or failed to adequately cover all the proposed theoretical dimensions of frailty. To address this gap, we recently developed the preliminary items of the Multidimensional Frailty Scale (MFS), a new instrument aimed to assess physical, cognitive, affective, social, and enviro...

This study challenges the assumption that undiagnosed cognitive impairment (CI) is driven primarily by patient-level barriers like poor awareness. In a population-weighted cohort of 1,856 older Singaporeans, CI prevalence was 24.7% (95%CI 18.8-31.8); yet the undiagnosed rate was high (81.4%, 95%CI 65.6-90.9), especially for mild CI (97.9%, 95%CI 94.1-99.3). This diagnostic gap persisted despite high symptom awareness (81.3%, 95%CI 63.6-91.5) and help-seeking intent (63.3%, 95%CI 47.5-76.7), with...

ObjectivesTo develop a simple risk prediction model for cognitive decline in a Chinese older adult cohort, and to evaluate its performance and transportability through temporal validation and external validation in a Japanese older adult cohort. MethodsThe prediction model was developed using a derivation cohort of 5,985 cognitively normal older adults from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS, 2011-2015). A comparison of seven machine learning algorithms was conducted, an...

Adaptation to physiological stress is fundamental to health but varies widely among individuals. In humans, this heterogeneity is evident in markedly different gains in fitness in response to identical exercise training. The molecular determinants of this variable "trainability" remain poorly understood. Here we identify insulin-like growth factor binding protein-7 (IGFBP7), a senescence-associated secreted protein, as a circulating constraint on exercise adaptation. Plasma proteomics in older a...

BackgroundPeak educational attainment is linked to early life general cognitive abilities, mid-life socioeconomic status, and late-life dementia risks. Yet, it is difficult to study its mechanisms acting across decades of life given diverse paths towards peak attainment and lifelong learning opportunities. MethodsWe analyzed profiles of peak educational attainment, adult learning (formal, job-related, non-formal, informal), and their relationships to novel plasma proteomic markers of age in a r...

Population aging heightens the burden of cognitive decline and brain disorders, yet trajectories of brain aging vary widely across individuals. Because the human brain is intrinsically lateralized, age-related shifts in hemispheric asymmetry may reveal latent aging subtypes that are masked by bilateral averages. Here, we derived reproducible and interpretable asymmetry-based brain-aging modes and validated their behavioral, genetic, and molecular signatures. Using UK Biobank MRI, we computed co...

BackgroundFalls among older adults are a leading cause of fractures, loss of independence, and need for long-term care. Community salons in Japan promote social participation and health activities among older adults. Hydrogen-rich water is widely used as a health product, but evidence in community settings remains limited. MethodsWe conducted a prospective observational study among 48 community-dwelling older adults attending community salons in Hiroshima City, Japan. Hydrogen-rich water was of...

Background. Early identification of risk for hospitalisation is crucial to reducing public health burden. Immune and endocrine-related markers are robust indicators of disease in epidemiological studies, but their value has not been consistently established with severe disorders requiring hospitalisation. Patterning of biomarker expression through latent profile analysis (LPA), may improve predictive accuracy for clinical outcomes above individual biomarkers alone. Method. Four biomarkers (C-rea...

Gait variability is a critical functional indicator of dynamic balance and neurocognitive decline in health. Its translation into clinical practice is, however, challenged by a lack of age-related normative trajectories and reference values under real-world ecological settings. Furthermore, the conventional metrics used to estimate gait variability (Coefficient of Variation, CV; Standard Deviation, SD) have a fundamental methodological flaw: the inherent sensitivity of conventional metrics to th...

INTRODUCTIONDementia reflects vascular and neurodegenerative processes in late life, yet studies often examine risks and outcomes individually. This study tested whether the cumulative burden of risks relates to structural brain pathology and cognition, and whether brain markers mediate these associations. METHODSCross-sectional data were drawn from 38,414 older adults in the National Alzheimers Coordinating Center database. A composite score summed ten binary risk factors: hypertension, diabet...

Deficit-accumulation Frailty Indices (FIs) have rapidly been integrated into health systems worldwide to quantify the state of reduced physiologic reserve to recover from a health insult in the aging population. Common data models (CDMs) have further enabled international, interinstitutional applications of FIs. However, the validity of such applications is unknown. We conducted an international network study comparing estimates of frailty from two electronic health record (EHR)-based FIs: Unit...

BackgroundEpigenetic clocks based on DNA methylation (DNAm) provide quantitative indicators of biological aging. However, the extent to which diverse lifestyle factors influence DNAm-based aging measures remains unclear, especially in Japanese populations. We aimed to evaluate the associations between 52 lifestyle-related factors and multiple epigenetic aging indicators, including six DNAm ages (Horvath, Hannum, PhenoAge, GrimAge, GrimAge v2, and PCPhenoAge specific to Japanese Population), the ...

BackgroundVestibular complaints are common in older adults and are linked to imbalance and falls. Some older adults show impaired vestibular perception despite preserved peripheral-reflex ("vestibular agnosia"). Yet it remains unclear if vestibular agnosia is independently linked to imbalance and falls in otherwise healthy older adults. We therefore investigated the prevalence of vestibular agnosia in community-dwelling older adults, and examined its association to balance and prospective falls....

ObjectivesGrowth Mindset and Grit have been proposed as key psychological resources for resilience and adaptation, yet their manifestation and social distribution in later life remain underexplored. This study examines the structure, distribution, and correlates of Growth Mindset and Grit in older adulthood using proxy indicators in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA). MethodsProxy indicators reflecting learning behaviour, personality traits, affect, and beliefs were used to derive ...

BackgroundCognitive decline and dementia represent major public health challenges in aging populations. Natural language processing (NLP)-augmented clinical decision support systems (CDSS) offer promising tools for early detection, yet causal evidence on their longitudinal impact at the health system level remains sparse. This study examines whether the phased adoption of NLP-augmented CDSS across German geriatric primary care practices causally improved cognitive decline detection rates over a ...

BackgroundThis study used qualitative methods to test and refine a framework for educating cognitively unimpaired individuals about their individual risk for Alzheimers disease and related dementias (ADRD) and intrapersonal health belief factors as part of the TEACH (Tailored Education for Aging and Cognitive Health) intervention. MethodWe assessed individuals ADRD risk factors and health belief concepts. Personalized data were presented individually, followed by a semi-structured phenomenograp...