F E ATU R E ST ORY
DIS RUP T ING
AGING
UND Continuing Education Symposium 2021 presenters chat aging and the so-called geriatric “4M’s” of healthcare. Americans are getting older. According to the nonprofit
question of how we can lower the population that is “older”
Population Reference Bureau, larger percentages of the U.S.
than its stated age into a more youthful category. The third,
population have been shifting steadily into older age cohorts
somewhat controversial, thing we’re asking is whether life
for many years, due largely to the aging of the Baby Boom
extension is possible. People have speculated that 120 years
generation and slowing rates of childbirth and immigration
is the maximum human lifespan. But some researchers think
generally. Given that this trend will have an enormous impact
it’s unlimited and that we just need to find the key to unlocking
on the American healthcare system over the next several
immortality. With that comes not only the biological but
decades, the UND School of Medicine & Health Sciences
philosophical-spiritual questions.
has made the study of aging – and the production of health providers focused on the senior population – an important component of its mission. To that end, the School will host a Continuing Medical Education (CME) symposium entitled “Disrupting Aging” as part of its annual UND Homecoming 2021 festivities on Friday, Oct. 22. To get a better handle on the issues facing providers, researchers, and anyone expecting to get older in the next decade, North Dakota Medicine gathered the symposium’s presenters to chat aging and the so-called geriatric “4M’s” of healthcare provision: medication, mobility, mentation, and what matters. Interviews conducted and edited for space by Brian James Schill
diet, exercise, of course. But there are also pharmaceutical tools. I think the most exciting pharmaceutical aspect of that is something called senolytics or senotherapeutics. These are drugs that are already FDA approved for the most part, or they’re natural compounds, like polyflavonols, that have been found to increase longevity and increase healthy aging, at least in animal models. These senolytic compounds can kill off “senescent” cells—those that stop dividing but do not die. Researchers think this accumulation of senescent cells within tissues is what’s driving inflammation and inflammation is what’s driving a lot of decline in physiology. Which is for people who may already qualify as “older,”
There’s obviously a lot happening in the lab, classroom,
right? But that’s secondary to keeping people “younger” or
and clinic related to aging. What are some exciting
healthier longer in the first place.
developments in your respective disciplines?
HBB: Yes. Dietary restriction and exercise—that’s been the gold
Don Jurivich: The excitement for me is that research is
standard in the field for a long time. Those things can slow
showing that we can stabilize and potentially reverse some
aging. Genetics is another method, but it’s not straightforward
of these aging processes. There’s preliminary evidence
any longer. Although things like CRISPR have been in the news
that have come out of human trials with specific diseases
in terms of abilities to manipulate genes, that’s a ways off for
such as pulmonary fibrosis, which is an aging disease, that
the number of age related diseases as a whole.
interventions have basically stabilized the disease rather than allowed it to progress. The second interesting point is the concept that we age at different rates, so our chronologic age may not match our biologic age. This raises the whole 18
Holly Brown-Borg: There are ways to slow aging, you know,
North Dakota Medicine Fall 2021
DJ: And genetics really has very little to do with it. The problem is that researchers have studied centenarians and there are virtually no genes that can be identified as being
