Aging Clinical Trials

Aging is associated with progressive impairment of tissue and organ function, resulting in increased susceptibility to chronic disease, frailty and disability. Currently there are limited treatment options to alter this inevitable process. The proposed work has the potential to identify a new therapeutic intervention to decrease aging-related degenerative processes. Rapamycin or sirolimus is a macrocyclic immunosuppressive drug that inhibits the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR). The mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) pathway is part of phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K)/protein kinase B (AKT)/mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR)-dependent pathway which is a fundamentally linked to cell metabolism, proliferation, differentiation, and survival. This pathway is altered in a variety of diseases, including cancers, immunosuppressed states, and fibroproliferative diseases. The mTOR kinase is considered one of the leading regulators of this pathway. Changes in mTOR signaling are closely associated with inflammation, cell growth and survival, leading to the development of chronic diseases. Recent evidence also suggests that mTOR inhibitors are promising modulators of the aging process by slowing the mechanisms of aging at the cellular level. There is a growing appreciation of the potential impact of sirolimus in slowing aging processes and in prolonging healthy lifespan. The proposed study addresses critical gaps in our understanding of the safety and efficacy of sirolimus in delaying aging processes and is based on findings in animal studies and incidental clinical observations. The investigators will overcome potential biases with a randomized control trial. The proposed intervention study is intended to improve our insight into clinical outcomes leading to prevention of chronic diseases such as skin cancer and mortality. Our overarching hypothesis is that sirolimus is one of the first pharmacological agents that will impact the aging process and chronic disease development. Specifically, the investigators aim to investigate whether sirolimus can reduce the occurrence or increase in biomarkers of aging processes. Read Less

This cluster randomized clinical trial seeks to provide large-scale, foundational evidence that high-intensity rehabilitation is effective and can be systematically implemented to improve functional outcomes for patients admitted to skilled nursing facilities following hospitalization. Additionally, this study will generate a descriptive overview of factors that predict implementation success while informing effective implementation strategies for future skilled nursing facilities innovation. Read Less

This study investigates the use of wearable devices and a sleep diary for tracking sleep and its impact on cognition and balance in older adults over six weeks. It will include routine mobility, balance assessment, and cognitive evaluations, focusing on analyzing the relationships between sleep, mobility, balance, and cognition. Read Less

Patients experience dramatic quadriceps strength loss after total knee replacement, which contributes to persistent weakness and reduced long-term function after surgery. Neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) reduces quadriceps weakness and improves patient function after knee replacement, but it is drastically underused in rehabilitation practice. This randomized trial will examine the effectiveness and feasibility of a comprehensive strategy for implementing neuromuscular electrical stimulation after knee replacement in two large healthcare organizations. Read Less

Dementia is a leading cause of death in the United States among aging adults. Brain insulin resistance has emerged as a pathologic factor affecting memory, executive function as well as systemic glucose control. Regular aerobic exercise decreases Alzheimer's Disease (AD) risk, in part, through changes in brain structure and function. However, there is limited data available on how exercise impacts brain insulin resistance in aging. This study will test the effect of acute exercise on brain insulin sensitivity in middle-aged to older adults. The study will also examine cognition and cardiometabolic health in relation to brain insulin sensitivity. Read Less

Over 50% of the Veterans enrolled for VA health care are over the age of 65. Dementia prevalence increases with age, and with the increase in the population of people ages 65 and older, the total number of people with dementia is also increasing. Older Veterans often have comorbid PTSD, major depression and traumatic brain injury so that they are at 2 to 5 times the risk for cognitive impairment and dementia compared to the general population. There is evidence that exercise interventions in sedentary older adults could improve both physical and cognitive function. However, there have been very few studies on the effects of exercise on cognition in older Veterans and do not reflect the broader ethnic and health-status diversity of Veterans. Thus, improved knowledge of the role of exercise on cognition as well as the predictive power of biomarkers could have a major beneficial impact on Veterans' functional independence and quality of life. The investigators hypothesize that participation in the VA Gerofit exercise program will improve cognitive function in older Veterans and that blood and muscle biomarkers will predict these improvements. Read Less

This study is being conducted by the Department of Kinesiology within the School of Public Health at Indiana University Bloomington. The purpose of this study is to better understand how inspiratory muscle strength training affects cardiovascular health and mood disturbance in postmenopausal women. Read Less

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of daily consumption of walnuts for 12 weeks on cognitive function, markers of inflammation and oxidative stress, and the gut microbiome in healthy adults age 55 years and older. Read Less

Two hallmarks of both healthy aging and age-related disease are 1) memory and navigational deficits, particularly in orienting towards goal locations and planning how to navigate to them, and 2) increased susceptibility to stress and altered regulation of the stress response. However, there are marked individual differences in these age-related changes. The investigators' proposal will help characterize factors that contribute to this variability. Participants will be pseudorandomly assigned to stress-manipulated or control groups. The investigators will give both groups a novel immersive navigation task, validated by the PI in healthy young adults. This paradigm gives participants the opportunity to either (a) flexibly draw on spatial memory in order to plan efficient routes to goal locations, or (b) fall back on inefficient, but cognitively less-demanding, stimulus-response associations (i.e., habits). Using neuroimaging and behavioral measures, the investigators' protocol will test whether experimentally-induced stress leads individuals to bring fewer details about future locations to mind when route planning, and whether such restricted prospective thought ultimately biases participants towards relatively inflexible, habitual actions. Read Less

The goal of the proposed study is to understand the reasons for the variability in aerobic exercise (AE) training benefits on the vasculature in middle-age and older (MA/O) adults, including differences between men and women. To achieve this goal, a mechanistic randomized controlled (RCT) will be conducted, in which adults are randomized to 12-weeks intervention of AE or no-exercise Control. Our overall hypothesis is that the exercise response variation in vascular benefits is related to age and sex differences in the biological changes underlying vascular aging and/or the molecular transducers (i.e., circulating molecules) that communicate and coordinate the effects of AE on the vasculature in the periphery and brain. Because this is a mechanistic trial, the overall goal is not a single health-related outcome. Rather, the goal is to advance our understanding of the molecular signals and pathways underlying the systemic and local effects of AE on vascular health that may explain the variability in AE responses with age and sex. This knowledge will allow for the development of personalized age- and sex-specific AE recommendations, and/or provide insights into molecular targets that can be manipulated to enhance and/or mimic exercise in non-responders or in persons unable to exercise. Read Less

Adults are often encouraged to exercise to maintain or improve bone health. However, there is evidence that exercise does not always lead to increases in bone mass, and exercise could lead to bone loss under certain conditions. Endurance exercise can increase bone resorption following an exercise bout, which may explain why bone does not always favorably adapt to exercise, but it is unclear if this also happens with resistance exercise. Further, it is not known how exercise training influences blood markers of bone resorption for either endurance or resistance exercise. The purpose of this study is to determine 1) if resistance exercise causes a similar increase in bone resorption as endurance exercise; and 2) if exercise training influences the increase in bone resorption following exercise for both endurance and resistance exercise. Read Less

The purpose of this study is to determine if daily consumption of 2 oz of pecans compared to 3.5 oz pretzel snacks for 12 weeks will 1) contribute to the body's ability to protect itself from oxidative damage (caused by oxygen radicals created by ultraviolet (UV) B light) by evaluating skin resistance to UV light irritation, skin fats/oils degradation and "rusting", and oxidative damage to the skin genes; and 2) explore the mechanisms of how snack consumption may affect aging by analyzing blood markers of aging as well as the microbes living in the gut (gut microbiome). Read Less