Endocrine Abstracts

Invertebrate model organisms are useful tools for research into ageing because they can be used to identify mechanisms of ageing that are conserved over large evolutionary distances. A picture is emerging of a conserved neuroendocrine axis that regulates reproduction in relation to nutrition, and that causes the rate of ageing to vary as a side-effect. Understanding the mechanisms by which this neuroendocrine axis impacts the ageing process is an important challenge for future...

Complex interactions between aging and the endocrine system include an important role of hormones in mediating effects of genotype on longevity. In Caenorhabditis elegans and Drosophila melanogaster, striking extension of life span can be produced by targeted disruption (knock out, KO) of genes that control signaling pathways homologous to insulin/insulin-like growth factor signaling in mammals. In the mouse, Mus musculus, longevity is greatly increased by spontaneous and expe...

It is considered that reactive oxygen species (ROS) and free radicals in general, are involved in a variety of physiological and pathological processes including degenerative disease and probably ageing. Age-related accrual of oxidative stress is a balance between ROS-induced generation rates and the activity of antioxidant defence enzymes, tissue antioxidant concentrations, repair processes, chaperone protein activity and molecular and cellular turnover rates. End-point measu...

Growth hormone (GH) secretion peaks in early adult life and declines progressively with age. People over the age of 60 have levels of GH secretion comparable to those in younger people with severe GH deficiency from pituitary tumours or their treatment. GH-dependent markers such as IGF-I, BP3, ALS and the collagen markers P-III-P, PICP, ITCP and osteocalcin all fall with age in parallel with the fall in GH secretion. Although exercise is one of the major stimuli to GH secretio...