Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
China faces urgent challenges associated with population aging. In this Comment, we summarize China’s adoption of long-term care insurance and underscore its importance for social and economic wellbeing. We provide recommendations for a future of sustainable and healthy aging in China.
Research Highlights, News & Views and Research Briefings are three article formats used in this journal to highlight primary research. We explain the shared and unique features of these formats and describe how we are starting to use artificial intelligence to help produce one of them.
Given the unique requirements of older adults, age-friendly product design is becoming increasingly important to promote independence and enhance quality of life. The Global Centre for Modern Ageing calls for a comprehensive, standardized and evidence-based assessment process to incorporate the perspectives of older adults into the design process.
The intestinal epithelium serves as a barrier that facilitates interaction between intrinsic and environmental factors. Aging is accompanied by the gradual deterioration of this barrier. We postulate that barrier dysfunction results from defects in epithelial membrane trafficking that exacerbate age-related metabolic imbalances. Herein, we integrate barrier integrity, protein homeostasis, membrane trafficking and intracellular lipid sensing into an age-determining mechanism.
Aging is a major risk factor for vascular disease. Increased levels of milk fat globule-EGF factor 8 (MFG-E8) are associated with many age-related arterial changes, but the mechanisms remain unclear. We propose that these detrimental effects may result from medin, a fragment of MFG-E8 that forms a highly common vascular amyloid.
Population aging is a global challenge that poses particular difficulties for low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). So far, there is a dearth of data that describe how aging affects Arab LMICs, which have distinct family structures, caregiving traditions, medical challenges and exposure to climate change. The planned Longitudinal Study of Egyptian Healthy Aging (AL-SEHA) — a member of the cross-nationally comparative family of aging studies around the world — is designed to address these knowledge gaps.