Investigating the Interface in Aging and Age-Related Diseases

Investigating the interface in Aging and Age-related diseases

"We think we've found an important physiological explanation for both aging and age-related disease," said Cynthia Kenyon, PhD, the Herbert Boyer Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at UCSF and senior author on a paper describing the work in the latest issue of SCIENCE.

This was said when they discovered a class of molecules called "small heat-shock proteins".

These proteins are known to assemble into complexes taht bind to damaged or unfolded protein in the body thus preventing them to form harmful aggregations that could lead to dieseases such as cancer, Alzheimer's and Hutington's. The main issue is that as we age, these molecules start to decrease in our body causing us to be more vulnerable.

The most common age-related dieseases in aged people are:

Type II Diabetes

Type 2 diabetes is a chronic disease marked by high levels of sugar in the blood. Diabetes happens when we have a problem in the way our body makes or uses insulin. Sugar is moved into cell by insulin so when a problem occur, abnormally high level of sugar will build up in the blood. This diseases usually strike people who's age is more than 45 years, espacially thin elderly. The symtoms for type 2 diabetes is blurred vision, erectile dysfunction, fatigue, slow-healing infections, increased thrist and also increased urination.

Alzheimer's Disease

Alzheimer's disease is an incurable and degenerative disease. Even until now, the real cause for this disease is still unknown and the treatment to delay or halt the progression of the disease is still nowt available. There are four stages in Alzheimer's which is pre-dementia, early dementia, moderate dementia, and advanced dementia. The common symtoms for this disease is inability to acquire new memories, such as difficulty in recalling recently observed facts, confusion, irritability and aggression, mood swings,