Category Archives: Longevity

Thyroid Awareness Month: AI-Assisted Thyroid Nodule Classification

January 24, 2020

January marks the beginning of Thyroid Awareness Month , which aims to spread awareness of thyroid conditions affecting over 20 million individuals living within the United States. Up to 60% of those with thyroid disease are unaware of their condition, while women are significantly more likely to experience thyroid issues than men. Although the underlying causes of thyroid disease are largely unknown, it is important to routinely evaluate the thyroid as undiagnosed thyroid disease can put patients at risk for severe health complications – including cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, and infertility.

Alongside conditions such as hyperthyroidism and hypothyroidism, the thyroid may also frequently develop nodules. Most don’t cause any symptoms and are benign in the majority of cases, however, a small percentage of thyroid nodules are cancerous. To improve early detection techniques, research efforts have begun investigating the potential benefit of employing artificial intelligence (AI) in classifying thyroid nodules.

Continue reading →

Optoceutics: A New Regenerative Medicine Technique

January 16, 2020

Currently, gene therapy, biomedical engineering, and stem cell therapies are among some of the most common and widely studied regenerative medicine techniques. Unfortunately, most of the strategies available today lack key characteristics – such as selectivity and reversibility – and researchers continue to investigate a range of promising alternatives in their quest to delay the aging process and mitigate the body’s susceptibility to disease. A new discovery in the field of regenerative medicine exhibits potential to spark advances in the field of tissue engineering; novel research from the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) in Milan has revealed the benefit of using light to facilitate the formation of new blood vessels in a new technique called “optoceutics.”

Continue reading →

Reversing the Biological Clock

November 27, 2019

While the current increasingly aging population and enhanced human lifespan are signs of great advancement in medical technology, population aging also contributes to a variety of socioeconomic, environmental, and healthcare-related difficulties, significantly straining the global economy and healthcare system. The medical community began investigating potential biomedical strategies of reversing the aging process several years ago in the hopes of diminishing cognitive decline, weakening of the immune system, and other negative effects of biological aging. In doing so, researchers have made significant discoveries in the field, one of which now provides a definitive basis of measurement for determining biological age – the epigenetic clock.

Developed by Dr. Steve Horvath, professor of Human Genetics and Biostatistics at UCLA, the epigenetic clock utilizes the body’s epigenome and specifically, changes in DNA methylation state to determine a person’s biological age, which may often exceed or fall behind their chronological age. Dr. Horvath’s discovery has helped to elucidate novel aspects of the aging process and deepen our current understanding, promoting further research efforts aimed at uncovering the complexities of reversing systemic aging. Thus far, attempts at the reversal of biological aging have not been confirmed by epigenetic age changes although the latest trial results from California implicate the potential to effectively reverse the aging process for the first time.

Continue reading →