Understanding retirement: the promise of life-span developmental frameworks.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Lockenhoff CE
PROVIDER: S-EPMC5549194 | biostudies-other | 2012 Sep
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other
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Project description:BackgroundLoneliness and social isolation are emerging public health challenges for aging populations.MethodsWe followed N = 11 302 U.S. Health and Retirement Study participants aged 50-95 from 2006 to 2014 to measure persistence of experiences of loneliness and exposure to social isolation. We tested associations of longitudinal loneliness and social isolation phenotypes with disability, morbidity, mortality, and biological aging through 2018.ResultsDuring follow-up, 18% of older adults met criteria for loneliness, with 6% meeting criteria at 2 or more follow-up assessments. For social isolation, these fractions were 21% and 8%. Health and Retirement Study participants who experienced loneliness and were exposed to social isolation were at increased risk for disease, disability, and mortality. Those experiencing persistent loneliness were at a 57% increased hazard of mortality compared to those who never experienced loneliness. For social isolation, the increase was 28%. Effect sizes were somewhat larger for counts of prevalent activity limitations and somewhat smaller for counts of prevalent chronic diseases. Covariate adjustment for socioeconomic and psychological risks attenuated but did not fully explain associations. Older adults who experienced loneliness and were exposed to social isolation also exhibited physiological indications of advanced biological aging (Cohen's d for persistent loneliness and social isolation = 0.26 and 0.21, respectively). For loneliness, but not social isolation, persistence was associated with increased risk.ConclusionsDeficits in social connectedness prevalent in a national sample of U.S. older adults were associated with morbidity, disability, and mortality and with more advanced biological aging. Bolstering social connectedness to interrupt experiences of loneliness may promote healthy aging.
| S-EPMC8514074 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Evidence from different sources shows that spouses' retirement decisions are correlated. Retirement policies affecting individuals in couples are therefore also likely to affect behavior of their spouses. It is therefore important to account for joint features in modeling retirement. This paper studies a structural collective model of labor supply and retirement of both partners in a couple with interdependent preferences, imperfect knowledge of preferences of the spouse, and subjective expectations about the future. We propose a novel method to estimate preferences and the intra-household bargaining process, which relies on stated preferences data collected in the Health and Retirement Study. Respondents were asked to choose between hypothetical retirement trajectories describing the retirement ages and replacement rates of both spouses from three perspectives: considering their own preferences only, the preferences of their spouse only, or the most likely decision for the household. With these data, all model parameters are identified and potential sources of joint retirement can be disentangled. Our results suggest that males misperceive their wives' preferences, overestimating their disutility of work. Our estimates correct for this. We find strong positive correlations between preferences for joint leisure (leisure complementarity) of the two partners. Counterfactual simulations with stylized retirement paths suggest that the leisure complementarities explain a substantial part of joint retirement, much more than correlation in unobserved heterogeneity or potential wage rates.
| S-EPMC7450675 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Integration/differentiation of mental processes is major mechanism of development. Developmental theories ascribe intellectual development to it. In psychometric theory, Spearman's law of diminishing returns postulates that increasing g allows increasing differentiation of cognitive abilities, because increased mental power allows variable investment in domain-specific learning. Empirical evidence has been inconsistent so far, with some studies supporting and others contradicting this mechanism. This state of affairs is due to a developmental phenomenon: Both differentiation and strengthening of relations between specific processes and g may happen but these changes are phase-specific and ability-specific, depending upon the developmental priorities in the formation of g in each phase. We present eight studies covering the age span from 4 to 85 years in support of this phenomenon. Using new powerful modeling methods we showed that differentiation and binding of mental processes in g occurs in cycles. Specific processes intertwine with g at the beginning of cycles when they are integrated into it; when well established, these processes may vary with increasing g, reflecting its higher flexibility. Representational knowledge, inductive inference and awareness of it, and grasp of logical constraints framing inference are the major markers of g, first intertwining with in their respective cycles and differentiating later during the periods of 2-6, 7-11, and 11-20 years, respectively. The implications of these findings for an overarching cognitive developmental/differential theory of human mind are discussed.
| S-EPMC6526403 | biostudies-literature
Project description:ABSTRACT MAGWIRE, MICHAEL MAHLON. Mutations Increasing Drosophila melanogaster Life Span. (Under the direction of Trudy F. C. Mackay.) Better living conditions and advances in medicine have made it possible for humans to live considerably longer than before. This has uncovered many health problems associated with age. By identifying genes involved in the limitation of life span, we may better understand the processes that lead to aging. In model organisms, we can use mutagenesis to discover mutations that increase life span, and hence infer that the wild-type allele limits life span by some means. We have assessed longevity in a collection of 1332 co-isogenic gene-trap P-element insertion lines and determined changes in life span of each insert line relative to the corresponding control line. Significant lines were determined via two different methods of analysis: A 95% confidence interval was established based on deviations of the mutant life spans from the controls and Dunnett’s two tailed t-tests were used to examine differences between mutant and control in each individual block. Based on the 95% confidence interval, 139 inserts displayed an increase in life span and 194 inserts a decrease. Using Dunnett’s, 70 lines increased in life span, while 270 decreased in life span. An additional 48 increased longevity lines were close enough to meeting Dunnett’s criteria to be considered for additional investigation. Combining these two analyses, we chose 83 inserts associated with increased life span for a secondary screen using an additional twelve replicates. 58 of these lines remained significant. We have determined the P-element insertion site for 50 of these lines. Starvation resistance, chill coma recovery time and climbing activity were measured on the lines remaining significant after the the secondary screen to identify pleiotropic effects. A positive correlation was found for males between life span and starvation resistance as well as between life span and chill coma recovery. Females only displayed a correlation between life span and chill coma recovery, which was negative. None of the lines indicated increased fitness for all phenotypes, indicating there may be some type of trade-off. There also appears to be a lot of pleiotropic variation depending on background and sex. Ten of the lines, all with the same parental background, were chosen for a half-diallel cross to identify epistasis between the mutants. There were substantial epistatic interactions between all ten lines. Furthermore, males and females displayed vastly different patterns of epistasis, again indicating major differences in life span regulation between the sexes. Finally, a subset of seven of the lines used in the epistatic study, in addition to the corresponding parental control, were chosen for microarray analysis to look for possible pathways and novel genes involved in increasing life span. 1,996 probe sets were significant at a false discovery rate q-value threshold of q < 0.0001. Tukeys tests were carried out for these probe sets to determine how each of the seven mutant backgrounds differed compared to the control and each other. In addition, each mutant background was compared individually with the control to identify any changes in expression. Gene ontologies were determined for each of the lines to identify over-represented biological functions which would indicate possible longevity pathways. Dozens of pathways were suggested, including several novel pathways. Keywords: Genetic (P-element insertion) modification and comparison to control line
2008-08-01 | GSE8775 | GEO
Project description:We analyze the relationship between age of survival, morbidity, and disability among centenarians (age 100-104 years), semisupercentenarians (age 105-109 years), and supercentenarians (age 110-119 years). One hundred and four supercentenarians, 430 semisupercentenarians, 884 centenarians, 343 nonagenarians, and 436 controls were prospectively followed for an average of 3 years (range 0-13 years). The older the age group, generally, the later the onset of diseases, such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, dementia, and stroke, as well as of cognitive and functional decline. The hazard ratios for these individual diseases became progressively less with older and older age, and the relative period of time spent with disease was lower with increasing age group. We observed a progressive delay in the age of onset of physical and cognitive function impairment, age-related diseases, and overall morbidity with increasing age. As the limit of human life span was effectively approached with supercentenarians, compression of morbidity was generally observed.
| S-EPMC3309876 | biostudies-other
Project description:It remains unclear whether retirement circumstances are associated with better or worse post-retirement health. This is partly due to confounding between measures of retirement circumstances and a tendency to account only for covariates around retirement age. The present study examined the contributions of both retirement age and retirement type, independently, to post-retirement health around age 77 years. It also examined whether these contributions remain once earlier life-course factors - social class, cognitive ability and education - were accounted for. Our sample was 742 Scottish people who took part in the Scottish Mental Survey 1947. In a path model including life-course predictors, retirement type (reason), but not age, significantly predicted post-retirement health, with ill-health retirement associated with poorer physical (β = 0.455, 95% CI [0.313, 0.597], p < 0.001) and mental health (β = 0.339, 95% CI [0.191, 0.486], p < 0.001), and redundancy retirement associated with poorer physical health only (β = 0.200, 95% CI [0.069, 0.331], p = 0.004). Of the life-course predictors, higher adult social class was associated with later retirement (β = 0.115, 95% CI [0.034, 0.196], p = 0.006) and higher childhood cognitive ability was associated with increased odds of voluntary retirement (OR = 1.054, 95% CI [1.005, 1.105], p = 0.032), but no indirect contribution to health (mediated by retirement circumstances) was significant. At the same time, higher childhood cognitive ability directly predicted better post-retirement physical health (β = -0.110, 95% CI [-0.216, -0.004], p = 0.041), independently of retirement circumstances. This study demonstrates the importance of considering retirement circumstances beyond age, and of accounting for confounding between retirement circumstances and earlier life-course factors.
| S-EPMC6580092 | biostudies-literature
Project description:In the present study, we tested the antioxidant activity of phycoerythrin (PE, an oligomeric light harvesting protein isolated from Lyngbya sp. A09DM) to curtail aging effects in Caenorhabditis elegans. Purified PE (100 ?g/ml) dietary supplement was given to C. elegans and investigated for its anti-aging potential. PE treatment improved the mean life span of wild type (N2)-animals from 15?±?0.1 to 19.9?±?0.3 days. PE treatment also moderated the decline in aging-associated physiological functions like pharyngeal pumping and locomotion with increasing age of N2 worms. Moreover, PE treatment also enhanced the stress tolerance in 5-day-aged adults with increase in mean survival rate from 22.2?±?2.5 to 41.6?±?2.5% under thermo stress and from 30.1?±?3.2 to 63.1?±?6.4% under oxidative (hydrogen peroxide)-stress. PE treatment was also noted to moderate the heat-induced expression of human amyloid-beta(A?1-42) peptide and associated paralysis in the muscle tissues of transgenic C. elegans CL4176 (Alzheimer's disease model). Effectiveness of PE in expanding the life span of mutant C. elegans, knockout for some up (daf-2 and age-1)- and down (daf-16)-stream regulators of insulin/IGF-1 signaling (IIS), shows the independency of PE effect from DAF-2-AGE-1-DAF-16 signaling pathway. Moreover, the inability of PE in expanding the life span of hsf-1 knockout C. elegans(sy441) suggests the dependency of PE effect on heat shock transcription factor (HSF-1) controlling stress-induced gene expression. In conclusion, our results demonstrated a novel anti-aging activity of PE which conferred increased resistance to cellular stress resulting in improved life span and health span of C. elegans.
| S-EPMC4199339 | biostudies-literature
Project description:As people live longer, ages at death are becoming more similar. This dual advance over the last two centuries, a central aim of public health policies, is a major achievement of modern civilization. Some recent exceptions to the joint rise of life expectancy and life span equality, however, make it difficult to determine the underlying causes of this relationship. Here, we develop a unifying framework to study life expectancy and life span equality over time, relying on concepts about the pace and shape of aging. We study the dynamic relationship between life expectancy and life span equality with reliable data from the Human Mortality Database for 49 countries and regions with emphasis on the long time series from Sweden. Our results demonstrate that both changes in life expectancy and life span equality are weighted totals of rates of progress in reducing mortality. This finding holds for three different measures of the variability of life spans. The weights evolve over time and indicate the ages at which reductions in mortality increase life expectancy and life span equality: the more progress at the youngest ages, the tighter the relationship. The link between life expectancy and life span equality is especially strong when life expectancy is less than 70 y. In recent decades, life expectancy and life span equality have occasionally moved in opposite directions due to larger improvements in mortality at older ages or a slowdown in declines in midlife mortality. Saving lives at ages below life expectancy is the key to increasing both life expectancy and life span equality.
| S-EPMC7071894 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Here we show that oral creatine (Cr) supplementation leads to increased life span in mice. Treated mice showed improved neurobehavioral performance, decreased accumulation of the aging pigment lipofuscin and upregulation of “anti-aging” genes in brain. As Cr is virtually free of adverse effects, it may be a promising food supplement for healthy aging in man. Keywords: creatine, life span, neurobehavioural performance, microarray, oxidative stress, aging
2007-06-13 | GSE5140 | GEO
Project description:Nutritional variation across the lifetime can have significant and sex-specific impacts on fitness. Using Drosophila melanogaster, we measured these impacts by testing the effects on life span and reproductive success of high or low yeast content in developmental versus adult diets, separately for each sex. We tested two hypotheses: that dietary mismatches between development and adulthood are costly and that any such costs are sex-specific. Overall, the results revealed the rich and complex responses of each sex to dietary variation across the lifetime. Contrary to the first hypothesis, dietary mismatches between developmental and adult life stages were not universally costly. Where costs of nutritional variation across the life course did occur, they were sex-, context-, and trait-specific, consistent with hypothesis 2. We found effects of mismatches between developmental and adult diets on reproductive success in females but not males. Adult diet was the main determinant of survival, and life span was significantly longer on high yeast adult food, in comparison to low, in both sexes. Developing on a high yeast diet also benefited adult female life span and reproductive success, regardless of adult diet. In contrast, a high yeast developmental diet was only beneficial for male life span when it was followed by low yeast adult food. Adult diet affected mating frequency in opposing directions, with males having higher mating frequency on high and females on low, with no interaction with developmental diet for either sex. The results emphasize the importance of sex differences and of the directionality of dietary mismatches in the responses to nutritional variation.
| S-EPMC7357588 | biostudies-literature