living healthy longer

The Colorado Longitudinal Study intends to build the world’s most comprehensive collection of biological samples from humans — longitudinally and paired with participants' medical histories and social determinants of health. Hear from Meredith Guerrero, COO of COLS, on what biobanking is and how COLS hopes to transform aging science and studies of human health.

Dr. Christine Lum Lung, CEO and founder of Origin Healthcare, introduces us to the hospital-at-home model of healthcare, which is bringing high-level, multidisciplinary care to patients in the comfort of their own homes. We discuss how hospital-at-home is different than a typical inpatient hospital stay, and how the current healthcare landscape is pushing providers toward new ways of delivering healthcare.

As dietary interventions, caloric restriction and intermittent fasting have been shown in animal studies to extend healthspan and reduce age-related diseases. Devin Wahl, a postdoctoral research associate in CSU's Healthspan Biology Lab, takes us through what caloric restriction and intermittent fasting are and why scientists believe they’re effective strategies to live longer and healthier.

Disclaimer: This episode is intended to provide general information about health and related subjects. The information should not be construed as personal medical advice. Please consult your health provider before making dietary changes.

Shelby Cox, RDN, director of the Kendall Reagan Nutrition Center at CSU, joins us to share general nutrition advice for healthy aging. We discuss how nutritional needs change as we get older and what a balanced diet includes for a healthy lifestyle. Cox shares strategies to make healthy eating easier and more convenient, and we cover a hot topic in aging research: using calorie restriction to boost healthspan.

Visit myplate.gov for more dietary guidance.

Read about the Mediterranean diet and MIND diet over on healthline.

Felix Duerr, an associate professor of Orthopedic Medicine and Mobility at CSU’s Veterinary Teaching Hospital, is interested in solving musculoskeletal problems to improve quality of life. In this episode, we focus on arthritis and the treatments and therapies that Duerr is researching to benefit both humans and dogs. We discuss why the placebo effect makes it easier to study disorders in dogs and what we can do to prevent, rather than react to, mobility issues.

Professor Arlene Schmid is a researcher who blends occupational therapy with yoga interventions to help people with chronic disabilities and diseases. In this episode, we discuss the basics of yoga, how to engage in a practice if you’ve never done yoga before, and we discuss Schmid’s research on how yoga affects chronic pain, how it helps caregivers, and a new study that will examine what happens in the brains of people with brain injuries when they take part in a yoga intervention. 

To learn more about the yoga and brain injuries study, or to sign up as a participant, email [email protected].

Peggy Budai, a nurse practitioner with the Older Adult and Palliative Care programs at UCHealth, tells us how she imagined the idea for a "hug tunnel" to combat social isolation when residents in long-term care facilities were unable to visit with family members during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

When we think about healthy aging, we often think of our diets, fitness routines, getting enough sleep — but how often do we think about the energy we put into our social networks? In this episode, Associate Professor Gloria Luong talks to us about the difference between social isolation and loneliness, why being alone isn’t exactly bad for you, and why the quality of your friendships matters more than the quantity. We also talk about how daily routines and stressors change with age.

Julie Moreno — an assistant professor in CSU's Department of Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences — examines the mechanisms that prompt neurons and other brain cells to become inflamed, leading to Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias.

Here we discuss the processes that happen in the brain throughout neurodegeneration and what Moreno’s lab is doing to test potential therapies to slow down neurodegeneration. We also discuss a new drug for the treatment of Alzheimer's, called Aduhelm (Aducanumab), that was approved by the FDA in early June: what it is and why there’s a debate surrounding it.

Professor Susan Bailey from CSU's Department of Environmental & Radiological Health Sciences joins us to discuss her project with the NASA Twins Study, an investigation of identical twin astronauts Scott and Mark Kelly that aims to identify factors in spaceflight that influence human health in preparation for human space exploration to the Moon or Mars.

Bailey tells us what her study reveals about aging in space, particularly how telomeres, the caps of our chromosomes, change with spaceflight — and what this means for aging on Earth and in orbit.

Read about Bailey's preliminary findings on telomeres in space here.

Find the Twins Study' scientists first publication in Science here.

Read the latest update on "The Biology of Spaceflight," a package of papers from 200 NASA Twins Study investigators, published in Cell Press in November 2020, here.