New research reveals clues about memory from the brains of 'SuperAgers'
She makes jewelry, sings in a choir and knits hats and scarves for the homeless. She also reads with her book club, goes to the gym a few times a week and is active in several civic organizations. According to her Fitbit, she still manages to sleep an average of 7½ hours a night.
At 85, Yackley is a 'SuperAger.' That is, someone who is 80 or older and retains the memory capacity — based on delayed word recall testing — of a person at least two to three decades younger.
Dr. M. Marsel Mesulam, who founded the Mesulam Center for Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer's Disease at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in the late 1990s, first defined a SuperAger. Mesulam Center researchers reflected on a quarter-century of SuperAger study in an analysis published Thursday in Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association.
Yackley, who is among the nearly 300 people who have participated in the Northwestern University SuperAging Program (NUSAP) since 2000, is proof that impaired memory isn't always a hallmark of aging.
'We are going to be role models for other people who are getting older,' she said. 'Take good care of your health and eat right and be sociable.'
Is SuperAging genetic?
Yackley, a longtime Chicagoan who hails from Turkey, acknowledges that genetic factors may be contributing to her youthful cognition. Her mother and father lived to be 86 and 88, respectively. On the other hand, Yackley feels her joie de vivre helps keep her mind sharp.
'I think it's partly your determination to live a long life and your activities that enable you to do so,' she said, encouraging older adults to pursue 'things that make you proud.'
Yackley's peers in the SuperAger program share a spirit of connection, according to Tamar Gefen, a co-author of the analysis and an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Feinberg School.
'I don't know if it's necessarily social connections, it's just connections in general,' Gefen said. 'There are people who are connected to the land, there are people who are connected to their ancestry, people who are connected to their grandchildren, who are connected to their art.'
Gefen added, 'You don't see a lot of detached SuperAgers.'
That said, people can't simply will themselves into 'superaging.'
More than 7 million people in the U.S. are living with Alzheimer's disease, according to the Alzheimer's Association, a statistic that's projected to soar to nearly 13 million by 2050. About 1 in 9 people 65 and older have this most common form of dementia.
At age 45, the lifetime risk of developing Alzheimer's is 1 in 5 for women and 1 in 10 for men. SuperAgers are defying these odds.
'Genetics is a part of it, definitely,' Gefen said. 'We know that there are major risk genes for Alzheimer's disease, and SuperAgers don't have those genes.'
For example, research has shown that people of European descent with two copies of a gene called APOE4 have a 60% chance of developing Alzheimer's by age 85.
'My interest is, are there genes that SuperAgers harbor that can actually protect them against getting Alzheimer's disease?' Gefen said. 'And is there a gene, let's say that's related to the immune system, that is over-expressed in SuperAgers that can be manipulated to then help individuals protect themselves?'
As she continues searching for such answers, Gefen said her team's most exciting findings have stemmed from the brains of SuperAgers who have died.
SuperAgers' brains may be built differently
Gefen and her colleagues at the Mesulam Center have autopsied nearly 80 SuperAger brains and compared them to those of their 'neurotypical' peers. They focused on two indicators of Alzheimer's: protein buildups in the brain called amyloid plaques and tau tangles.
'What we found in memory centers of the SuperAging brain is that there are a lot fewer tau tangles,' Gefen said. 'But interestingly, amyloid or plaque pathology doesn't really differ a whole lot.'
Because a number of Alzheimer's treatments single out amyloid plaques, SuperAgers bring such treatment methods into question, Gefen said: 'Are we really targeting the right target if SuperAgers and their peers have similar amounts of amyloid?'
Other findings include that SuperAgers tend to have larger entorhinal neurons, which are nerve cells that are key to memory, and more von Economo neurons, which are nerve cells critical to social behavior.
'Our guess is that [SuperAgers] are probably born with these kinds of structural protections,' Gefen said. 'But we're now going really deep into the molecular mechanisms of the cell in order to figure out what is keeping that cell strong.'
Dr. Timothy Chang, who wasn't involved in the SuperAger research, works on the opposite end of the spectrum. An assistant professor of neurology at the Mary S. Easton Center for Alzheimer's Research and Care at UCLA, Chang studies and sees patients who have dementia.
Analyzing 'outlier populations' such as SuperAgers is valuable to the medical field, he said.
'Those cases are really interesting,' Chang said. 'They can teach us a lot about how, potentially, those people, based on genetics or other lifestyle factors, were able to avoid the disease.'
SuperAgers live on in the lab
Yackley has toured Northwestern's Brain Bank, where she is 'proud' her own brain will one day be sent for study. She's also making plans to donate the rest of her body to science.
'Hopefully, maybe my heart or my kidneys can be used for transplanting,' Yackley said. 'I don't want to be underground.'
In the meantime, Yackley would be grateful to make it to 90, she said. She maintains a to-do list and aims to log about 4,200 steps a day. The retired journalist, travel agent and memoir author is already at work on her next undertaking.
'I am trying to put together a scrapbook of my life, and that's a big project,' Yackley said.
Though the prevalence of SuperAgers is unclear, they appear to be uncommon. Gefen and her co-authors noted that during the initial recruitment of study participants, just 10% met the criteria of SuperAgers. Today, 101 SuperAgers ranging in age from 81 through 111 are actively involved in Mesulam Center research.
Not all SuperAgers prioritize their health — on the contrary, some defiantly savor their vices — and many have lived difficult lives, Gefen said. But they don't take their cognitive fitness for granted.
'These SuperAgers know that they have a gift,' Gefen said.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
15 hours ago
- Yahoo
Study Finds Special Brain Traits of 'SuperAgers.' Here's How They Avoid Dementia
A study that began in the year 2000 is finally paying off. Northwestern University's SuperAger program has been in the works for over 25 years, and a new report in the Journal of the Alzheimer's Association is detailing what the group has found. Published on August 7, the report details the scope of the study and its results so far — 25 years out since the start. 290 people signed up to be studied in that time, all over 80 years old and cognitively well. Participants are tested for a high delayed word recall ability, signifying a higher memory capacity at an older age. These seniors that show exceptional memory are labeled "SuperAgers". Of the 290 participants, 79 allowed scientists to autopsy their brains after passing away. Because of this, researchers were able to make a connection between dementia, particularly Alzheimer's, and the structure of the brain. "Neurotypical seniors ≥ 80 years of age have significant and widespread cortical thinning compared to neurotypical 50- to 60-year-olds," the report reads, "Superagers, on the other hand, showed no cortical thinning compared to the younger controls." The brain — particularly the cerebral cortex — naturally thins as a person ages, but Northwestern's report shows that may happen less quickly in some people than in others. "It appears that cortical thinning is unavoidable," the report states, "but that it is probably much slower in superagers." Further, researchers reported that superagers' brains tend to develop few or zero amyloid plaques and tau tangles, which are two tell-tale signs of Alzheimer's disease. While no specific cause has been determined, researchers believe they're a bit closer to understanding dementia. What is dementia? Dementia is a decline in memory or mental capacity, usually found in senior citizens. Alzheimer's is the most common form of dementia, affecting around 11% of those 65 and older. There are various factors that scientists believe could lead to an increased chance of developing Alzheimer's or dementia as a person ages. Some of these factors, as found in the study by Northwestern University, are structural and genetic. Others, though, may come from a person's lifestyle. Research shows that traumatic brain injuries earlier in life, high blood pressure, untreated depression, and hearing loss may help onset dementia. Low physical activity and few meaningful personal connections may also exasperate the degenerative Finds Special Brain Traits of 'SuperAgers.' Here's How They Avoid Dementia first appeared on Men's Journal on Aug 7, 2025 Solve the daily Crossword
New York Post
a day ago
- New York Post
Trump can rein in healthcare costs AND win medical breakthroughs — here's how
Of all the problems bedeviling the American healthcare system, the high cost of pharmaceuticals is one of those most commonly cited by patients. Polling finds that most Americans think drugs are too expensive, and they're often right — even if pricey medications beat alternatives like surgery, hospitalization or living with pain. President Donald Trump has promised to implement healthcare reforms that both increase innovation and improve affordability. Advertisement Some see these as contradictory pursuits — but when it comes to pharmaceuticals, both of the president's goals can be achieved at the same time. This week the two of us, along with a team of top health and economic experts, launched Most Favored Patients, a working group aimed at developing reforms that will lower drug prices in ways that won't hinder or delay new drug development. Before we suggest policies that could work, let's be clear about what doesn't: government-mandated price controls. Advertisement Top-down edicts that remove the profit motive from drug research and development will do more harm than good, impeding the race to identify cures for cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, epilepsy and other cruel diseases. It's a short-sighted solution, too: It ignores the reality that 93% of US prescriptions are for very cheap generics — indeed, cheaper here than abroad — that emerge after innovators earn the necessary returns on their investments. Instead, let's try some innovations that make both medical and economic sense. First, do the easy stuff first and allow patients to buy medicines from pharmaceutical companies directly. Advertisement Our recent poll of 1,000 battleground-state voters found overwhelming 86% support for this concept, which would lower drug prices by avoiding expensive retail markups imposed by insurance companies and others. Most voters also favor Trump's intention to rein in costly middlemen like the highly concentrated pharmacy benefit manager industry, which negotiates drug prices for insurance companies. We also must require foreign countries to pay their fair share for medical innovations developed in the United States — that is, nearly all of them. Trump can use his NATO negotiations as a model here: Just as he has required Europe to pony up more for the benefits of NATO security through minimum levels of military spending, he could convince trading partners to spend more of their GDP on new drugs. Advertisement Right now, more than 70% of global pharmaceutical earnings come from the United States, even though we generate less than a quarter of global GDP. We annually spend $13,000 on healthcare per capita, while the rest of the developed world spends far less than $10,000 — partly because we allow more free-market healthcare pricing than other nations do. Trump is already implementing some of these reforms in his America First trade deals, securing some $300 billion worth of foreign commitments for new domestic pharmaceutical R&D, manufacturing and workforce investments. These commitments share the burden of finding cures that will benefit all of humanity — while fueling the American research engine that justifies the investments. Next, the Food and Drug Administration must thoroughly overhaul its antique, snail's-pace drug approval process: Many potential wonder drugs developed by small biomedical firms are shelved when that process' exorbitant costs and delays drain their capital. The FDA should fast-track experimental drugs for crippling and lethal diseases, and should expedite 'Right To Try' rules to get promising drugs to the people who need them. In addition, we believe the FDA should loosen its regulations and use economic criteria, not just clinical ones, to determine whether a drug may be fast-tracked for approval: Put simply, cheaper drugs should be allowed to come to market faster. Advertisement Finally, we're confident that price transparency in drugs and all other medical services would help drive prices down and encourage more comparison-shopping by patients. We don't buy food or gas or homes without knowing their price — but that's too often the case with drugs, hospitals and medical procedures. Republicans have been missing out on the political benefits of seizing on common-sense reforms like these. Advertisement Voters consistently view the GOP as being less caring and less reliable on solving our nation's healthcare concerns. That's made them cower. They keep their mouths shut and flee from any discussion of voters' valid complaints — and often lose elections as a result. As the midterms approach, Republicans who promote innovation with our Most Favored Patient proposals will help bring down costs, ensure American biomedical innovative supremacy, and save lives. Advertisement Everyone is on board with that. Stephen Moore is a co-founder of Unleash Prosperity, where Tomas Philipson is a senior research fellow.
UPI
2 days ago
- UPI
Researchers: Small traces of lithium may help prevent Alzheimer's
A Harvard Medical School and Rush University study suggests tiny amounts of lithium may help protect the brain from Alzheimer's and signs of aging. Photo by Adobe Stock/HealthDay News Tiny amounts of lithium -- a natural metal -- may help protect the brain from Alzheimer's and signs of aging, new research shows. Scientists at Harvard Medical School and Rush University found that when mice were fed a low-lithium diet, their brains developed more inflammation and signs of aging accelerated. The findings were published Wednesday in the journal Nature. Turns out, lithium may play a critical role in how the brain stays healthy, the researchers found. In the study, they compared normal mice to mice bred to develop brain changes linked to Alzheimer's, including a build-up of sticky proteins. Mice on low-lithium diets developed problems more quickly, while those given a specific lithium compound called lithium orotate saw signs of brain improvement. When given lithium orotate, mice had fewer memory problems and fewer of the sticky clumps known as beta amyloid plaques. In people, those plaques are hallmarks of Alzheimer's. Many people know lithium as a drug used to treat bipolar disorder and depression. It's been used for decades. But this study suggests that very small amounts of lithium are naturally present in the body, and it may be essential for brain health. Researchers suspect that beta amyloid binds to lithium and prevents it from reaching brain cells that need it. Without enough lithium, cells called microglia, which help clean up waste in the brain, stop working properly. This creates a sort of cycle: As beta amyloid builds up, even less lithium is available and the brain has a harder time clearing the damaging proteins. In the first stage of the study, scientists tested brain tissue and blood samples from people with and without Alzheimer's. They looked at 27 metals and found a key difference: Lithium levels were much lower in the brains of people with memory problems. They repeated this test using brain samples from multiple hospitals and universities and found the same results. "At first, frankly, we were skeptical of the result because it wasn't expected," Dr. Bruce Yankner, a professor of genetics at Harvard, told CNN. Experts warn that people should not take lithium supplements without medical advice. The doses used in this study were about 1,000 times lower than the doses used to treat mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder. "A mouse is not a human. Nobody should take anything based just on mouse studies," Yankner said. "The lithium treatment data we have is in mice, and it needs to be replicated in humans. We need to find the right dose in humans," he added. Still, the findings are promising. Mice who received low doses of lithium orotate did not show any signs of toxicity or organ damage. Yankner hopes human trials will start soon. Many healthy foods contain small amounts of lithium. These include: Leafy green vegetables Nuts and legumes Certain spices like turmeric and cumin Some mineral waters Previous studies have hinted at lithium's benefits. One large Danish study found people with higher lithium levels in their tap water were less likely to be diagnosed with dementia. Another study in the U.K. found people prescribed lithium were about half as likely to get Alzheimer's as those who were not. Ashley Bush, a neuroscientist in Australia, wrote an editorial that accompanied the new research. He said it presents "compelling evidence that lithium does in fact have a physiological role and that normal aging might impair the regulation of lithium levels in the brain." Yankner pointed to the possible benefit. "It is a potential candidate for a common mechanism leading to the multisystem degeneration of the brain that precedes dementia," he told CNN. "It will take a lot more science to determine whether this is a common pathway... or one of several pathways," to Alzheimer's, he added. "The data are very intriguing." More information The Mayo Clinic has more on lithium. Copyright © 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
