5 replies to this topic

[myartofjoy]

Hey, I'm so glad I've found this forum!! I was looking for an active platform for Gerontology for ages
I'm a student of Anthropology on Vienna. Im looking for an diploma thesis that combines gerontology and makroscopic anatomy. I was offered to have access to all the specimen in the anatomical institute...As a pity there is no Gerotonlogy Research in Vienna so i have to make up something on my own! The corpses are generally in the right age, and I can have insight in there personal data, e.g. diseases, age etc. I was lately thinking about pelvic floor muscles- since this can become a major problem for older people... Are there many anatomical studies of centenarians???? Do you have any idea what i could research?
Thank you so much!

[lunarsolarpower]

My initial ideas are mostly dental related but you could measure the classics like reduction in VDO (vertical dimension of occlusion) or the level of teeth attrition present. Perhaps more interesting but difficult would be to measure the mass of the muscles of mastication and correlate it to the number of teeth still present at death (edentulous people are only able to exert roughly 1/6th the biting force of those with teeth).

If your study set consists exclusively of centenarians I would be quite interested to know information from their dental charts such as if they had a complete absence of periodontal disease, if they were more likely to have kept their teeth than others of their generation, etc.

[zoolander]

I would be, if I was in your position, look first at trying to investigate something that explains why we become so frail as we age. This is where a lot of the suffering and loss of quality of life comes from.

It would be great if you had access to younger, adult and aged bodies. Try to stratify the bodies by age and then by muscle mass/fibre type. I believe that those born with the genetically predisposed higher percentage of type II muscle fibres would become frail later in their life because aging is associated with a selective loss of type II motor neurons and fast type II fibres.

[myartofjoy]

Thank you very much so far!
I had a chat with my professor, and told her I wanted to do something in this direction. Probably I will work on Sarkopenia now, but I still haven't really figured out what exactly. It's kind of hard, and probably I will still have to read alot of articles to find the exact topic! If you still have any ideas, I would be very pleased if you told me so!
THX Johanna

[Lazarus Long]

You could also try and establish a protocol that uses a comparative model with respect to physical longevity that examines both physical and cultural anthropological parameters and demonstrates what characteristics lengthen life span and which shorten it on a large scale basis.

Everyone can see the obvious about individuals but what is more important are larger more subtle aspects like diet and changes of diet over time, socio-technical sophistication, regional occupation and migration patterns, intercultural contact, disease, climate, etc.

There are very few analyses that qualitatively outline the parameters directly impacting long term term life expectancy patterns for cultures that show trends over generations with respect to identifiable specific criteria. This kind of study would not be easy but the better the model to work with the more likely the protocol itself would evolve as others contribute data to it.

The results from such a protocol once established would contribute to understanding which diets helped accelerate intelligence, or which environments promoted the longest lifespans. Which sociocultural adaptations led to lengthening lifespans and which diminished them etc. The kind of data might offer criteria for creating modern test procedures that yield tools for extending life expectancy now or diminishing factors that shorten it aside from the obvious about risk, disease, warfare etc.

I hope that helps. I'm just throwing out another vague idea but you are the one that must coalesce a specific direction to take any idea. However feel free to come back and discuss your thoughts.

[veronica]

Sarkopenia is interesting topic. It is known, since muscle cells are non-dividing, that increased IGF-I levels could increase muscle size and prevent muscle cell loss. But increasing IGF-I level might help only temporarily and contradict with overall maximal longevity. It has been shown that mice with decreased IGF-I and Akt signaling activity have the longest lifespan. Perhaps supplementing with IGF and Akt activation could give older people bigger and stronger muscle but overall longevity of these muscle cells might not be so long. I was reading somewhere that actually inhibition of Akt increased muscle cell survival. There are many contradicting studies on this topic. It would be interesting to know how active are these pathways in muscle cells of centenarians and very old people compared to the rest of aging population.