Search results for "Ageing"
showing 10 items of 609 documents
Impact of hydrothermal ageing on the thermal stability, morphology and viscoelastic performance of PLA/sisal biocomposites
2016
The influence of the combined exposure to water and temperature on the behaviour of polylactide/sisal biocomposites coupled with maleic acid anhydride was assessed through accelerated hydrothermal ageing. The biocomposites were immersed in water at temperatures from 65 to 85 °C, between the glass transition and cold crystallisation of the PLA matrix. The results showed that the most influent factor for water absorption was the percentage of fibres, followed by the presence of coupling agent, whereas the effect of the temperature was not significant. Deep assessment was devoted to biocomposites subjected to hydrothermal ageing at 85 °C, since it represents the extreme degrading condition. Th…
How to enhance digital support for cross-organisational health care teams? A user-based explorative study
2020
Health care service provision of individualised treatment to an ageing population prone to chronic conditions and multimorbidities is threatened. There is a need for digitally supported care, that is, (1) person-centred, (2) integrated, and (3) proactive. The research project 3P, Patients and Professionals in Productive Teams, aimed to validate and verify the prerequisites for health care systems run with patient-centred service models. This paper presents an explorative study of the digital support of a cross-organisational health care team in Norway, providing services to elderly frail people with multimorbidities in hospital discharge transition. Qualitative research methods were employe…
Mediterranean diet and longevity: an example of nutraceuticals?
2013
The Mediterranean diet (Mediet) is an eating pattern characterizing a lifestyle and culture that has been reported to contribute to better health and quality of life. The Mediet reflects food patterns typical of Mediterranean regions, where olive oil plays an essential role in the food pyramid. Olive oil is located in the middle and it is considered the principal source of dietary fat because of its high nutritional quality (particularly extra virgin olive oil). Several studies have shown the effect of the Mediet on healthy status by lowering the rates of coronary heart disease, certain cancers, and some other age-related chronic diseases. Although the scientific literature regarding diet a…
Genes, Ageing and Longevity in Humans: Problems, Advantages and Perspectives.
2006
Many epidemiological data indicate the presence of a strong familial component of longevity that is largely determined by genetics, and a number of possible associations between longevity and allelic variants of genes have been described. A breakthrough strategy to get insight into the genetics of longevity is the study of centenarians, the best example of successful ageing. We review the main results regarding nuclear genes as well as the mitochondrial genome, focusing on the investigations performed on Italian centenarians, compared to those from other countries. These studies produced interesting results on many putative "longevity genes". Nevertheless, many discrepancies are reported, l…
Constituent priming effects: Evidence for preserved morphological processing in healthy old readers
2009
How elderly adults process morphologically complex words is still a matter of controversy. The present study explored whether compound word recognition is affected by ageing. A group of young adults and a group of older healthy adults were tested on a lexical decision task. Compound words were presented primed by their first constituent (book-BOOKSHOP), their second constituent (shop-BOOKSHOP), or by an unrelated word (house-BOOKSHOP). Results revealed that morphological processing is fully preserved in advanced age and that the magnitude of the constituent priming effect was similar for young and older adults.
Effect of ageing on the morphology and creep and recovery of polymer-modified bitumens
2018
Polymer additives are used to improve the properties of road bitumens including their oxidative resistance. However, their usage as anti-oxidative materials remains relatively unclear. This study aims to investigate the changes in the morphology and the rheological response of polymer modified bitumens used in road pavement construction caused by ageing. An elastomer (radial styrene butadiene styrene, SBS) and a plastomer (ethyl vinyl acetate, EVA) polymer were mixed with one base bitumen at three polymer concentrations. The bitumens were RTFO and PAV aged. The morphology of the bitumens was captured by fluorescence microscopy while the rheological properties were measured by means of the m…
Ageing and production of the cytokines in Chernobyl clean-up workers from Latvia
2009
Ageing and production of the cytokines in Chernobyl clean-up workers from Latvia Chronic low-grade inflammation with subsequent impairment of immune system function promotes the development of age-related diseases, such as cancers, degenerative and infection diseases. It is not yet clear, if exposure to ionising radiation accelerates the aging process. The aim of the present work was to estimate the production of several cytokines by peripheral blood cells of Latvia's Chernobyl clean-up workers depending on age. ELISA was employed to determine the plasma level of sIL-1β and sIL-6 as well as level of IL-4 and TNF-α spontaneous and 24h and 96h after in vitro stimulation of peripheral blood mo…
Reductive stress in pathophysiology
2017
Oxidative stress, as defined by Sies more than thirty years ago, has received much attention and has served as an important intellectual tool to understand the pathophysiology of many diseases and also of normal processes like ageing. However, recently the idea that the cells might suffer from reductive rather than oxidative stress and that such stress may be relevant in pathophysiology has gained momentum. Some time ago we defined reductive stress as a “as a pathophysiological situation in which the cell becomes more reduced than in the normal, resting state”. We postulated that reductive stress might be due, at least in part to a “small but persistent generation of oxidants that results i…
Redox imbalances in ageing and metabolic alterations: Implications in cancer and cardiac diseases. An overview from the working group of cardiotoxici…
2020
Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a well established risk factor for cardiovascular (CV) diseases. In addition, several studies indicate that MetS correlates with the increased risk of cancer in adults. The mechanisms linking MetS and cancer are not fully understood. Several risk factors involved in MetS are also cancer risk factors, such as the consumption of high calorie-food or high fat intake, low fibre intake, and sedentary lifestyle. Other common aspects of both cancer and MetS are oxidative stress and inflammation. In addition, some anticancer treatments can induce cardiotoxicity, including, for instance, left ventricular (LV) dysfunction and heart failure (HF), endothelial dysfunction an…
How does an allowance for a non-working younger partner affect the retirement behaviour of couples?
2021
AbstractWe examine the effect of the partner allowance (PA) in the Dutch pension system on the retirement decisions of couples using administrative data. PA was paid to people who receive the public old-age pension with a partner younger than the state pension age (SPA) and with a low own income. PA worked as a financial incentive to retire earlier, especially for the younger partners. As of 1 April 2015, new old-age pensioners are no longer entitled to this allowance. We estimate the effect of this reform on the retirement behaviour of each spouse. To account for the fact that at the same time, another reform essentially put an end to generous early retirement arrangements, we compare sing…