Pinpointing Genes that Protect Against Frailty

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Aug 08, 2014, 01:08 ET

BRONX, N.Y., Aug. 8, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Frailty is a common condition associated with old age, characterized by weight loss, weakness, decreased activity level and reduced mobility, which together increase the risk of injury and death. Yet, not all elderly people become frail; some remain vigorous and robust well into old-age. The question remains: why?

Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have been awarded a $3.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to study the role of genetics in protecting against frailty. The study will be led by Nir Barzilai, M.D., director of the Institute for Aging Research and the Ingeborg and Ira Leon Rennert Chair in Aging Research at Einstein and attending physician, medicine at Montefiore Medical Center, and Joe Verghese, M.B.B.S., the Murray D. Gross Memorial Faculty Scholar in Gerontology at Einstein, chief of geriatrics at Einstein and Montefiore and director of the Montefiore Einstein Center for the Aging Brain.

"People who are frail are more vulnerable to serious complications from falls or surgery and more susceptible to infection," said Dr. Verghese. "Understanding why some elderly people do not experience a loss of balance or strength and do not suffer from abnormal gait may help us prevent and treat such physical decline."

The new project taps into the resources of Einstein's LonGenity Research Study, which builds upon the Longevity Genes Project, an ongoing 15-year study with more than 500 Ashkenazi Jews over the age of 95. LonGenity compares the genetics of the centenarians and their children with those with usual survival. Over the past 10 years, Dr. Barzilai's team has identified several biological markers that may explain their extreme longevity.

"We have shown that our centenarian participants have a significant genetic advantage over the general population. Their rare genetic variants have allowed them to live longer, healthier lives and avoid or significantly delay age-related diseases, such as Alzheimer's and type 2 diabetes," said Dr. Barzilai,. "We now want to know if a family history of those same 'longevity genes' reduces the risk for frailty."

The researchers will build on a pilot study funded by the American Federation for Aging Research that linked exceptional longevity to improved physical function and reduced risk of frailty. The Einstein team plans to further those initial efforts to identify gene variants that keep frailty at bay, explore biological pathways that may lead to frailty, and develop drugs that mimic the effect of those frailty-preventing genes.

The five-year grant, "Role of exceptional longevity genotypes in protection against frailty in aging" (R01AG044829), was awarded by the National Institute on Aging, part of the NIH.

About Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University
Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University is one of the nation's premier centers for research, medical education and clinical investigation. During the 2013-2014 academic year, Einstein is home to 743 M.D. students, 275 Ph.D. students, 103 students in the combined M.D./Ph.D. program, and 313 postdoctoral research fellows. The College of Medicine has more than 2,000 full-time faculty members located on the main campus and at its clinical affiliates. In 2013, Einstein received more than $150 million in awards from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This includes the funding of major research centers at Einstein in aging, intellectual development disorders, diabetes, cancer, clinical and translational research, liver disease, and AIDS. Other areas where the College of Medicine is concentrating its efforts include developmental brain research, neuroscience, cardiac disease, and initiatives to reduce and eliminate ethnic and racial health disparities. Its partnership with Montefiore Medical Center, the University Hospital and academic medical center for Einstein, advances clinical and translational research to accelerate the pace at which new discoveries become the treatments and therapies that benefit patients. Through its extensive affiliation network involving Montefiore, Jacobi Medical Center –Einstein's founding hospital, and three other hospital systems in the Bronx, Brooklyn and on Long Island, Einstein runs one of the largest residency and fellowship training programs in the medical and dental professions in the United States. For more information, please visit www.einstein.yu.edu, read our blog, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, and view us on YouTube.