Beth Newcomb

STAT quoted Caleb Finch in a story on the apparent links between air pollution and neurodegenerative diseases. “Population-based studies have come into complete agreement on three continents — North America, Western Europe, and Asia — that air pollution above a certain level predicts a higher risk of dementia, particularly Alzheimer’s, and cognitive decline. That’s now proven by at least 10 major studies,” Finch said.

U.S. News & World Report quoted Mireille Jacobson about doctors making safer choices prescribing opioids. “The enduring impacts suggest that the letters encouraged engagement among clinicians who would not have otherwise created PMP accounts or searched the PMP. This finding is noteworthy because account creation is an important barrier to PMP use,” Jacobson said.

Good Day LA 5AM highlighted research by Andrei Irimia of USC Leonard Davis that used artificial intelligence to tell how fast the brain is aging.

Science Blog featured a study led by Andrei Irimia on measuring brain age and dementia risk. “Our study harnesses the power of deep learning to identify areas of the brain that are aging in ways that reflect a cognitive decline that may lead to Alzheimer’s,” Irimia said. “People age at different rates, and so do tissue types in the body. We know this colloquially when we say, ‘So-and-so is forty, but looks thirty. The same idea applies to the brain. The brain of a forty-year-old may look as ‘young’ as the brain of a thirty-year-old, or it may look as ‘old’ as that of a sixty-year-old.” The study was also covered in Neuroscience News, StudyFinds, AZO Robotics, Yahoo Notícias (Brazil), and El Debate (Spain).

Business Insider India featured a study led by postdoctoral researcher Eric Klopack on how social stressors can contribute to immune systems appearing to be older. “In this study, after statistically controlling for poor diet and low exercise, the connection between stress and accelerated immune aging wasn’t as strong,” said Klopack. “What this means is people who experience more stress tend to have poorer diet and exercise habits, partly explaining why they have more accelerated immune aging.” The study was also featured in Hindustan Times.

Harvard Business Review featured a column coauthored by Paul Irving on how employers can embrace and retain older employees. “Overall, our research demonstrated that employers seeking to tap the older worker labor pool need to move from transactional relationships with employees to relationships of empathy and understanding,” wrote Irving and colleagues. The column was also mentioned in RetailWire.