In Finland, the incentive for the implementation of a national programme for ageing workers (FNPAW) came from the rapid increase in unemployment of the age group 55-64. Earlier measures such as the widespread use of early retirement were seen to have positive short-term effects but potentially devastating long-term effects. Despite the demographic indicators (e.g. ageing population and deterior...

premature ovarian failure (pof) is a heterogeneous syndrome with several causative factors. autoimmune mechanisms are involved in pathogenesis of 4-30 % of pof cases. the present review focuses on the role of autoimmunity in the pathophysiology of pof. the evidences for an autoimmune etiology are: demonstration of ovarian autoantibodies, the presence of lymphocytic oophoritis, and association w...

Ovarian cancer is a deadly disease for which there is no effective means of early detection. Ovarian carcinomas comprise a diverse group of neoplasms, exhibiting a wide range of morphological characteristics, clinical manifestations, genetic alterations, and tumor behaviors. This high degree of heterogeneity presents a major clinical challenge in both diagnosing and treating ovarian cancer. Fur...

Background: Diminished ovarian reserve (DOR) is a primary infertility disorder characterized by a reduction in the number and/or quality of oocytes, usually accompanied by high follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) levels and regular menses. DOR aetiology factors are different, such as genetic factors, ageing, autoimmune disorders, adrenal gland impairment factors and iatrogenic causes, e.g. chemo...

PURPOSE The serum tumor marker CA 125 is elevated in most clinically advanced ovarian carcinomas, and currently, one of the most promising early detection strategies for ovarian cancer uses CA 125 level in conjunction with imaging. However, CA 125 is elevated in only 50% of early-stage ovarian cancer and is often elevated in women with benign ovarian tumors and other gynecologic diseases. Addit...

The Free Radical Theory of Ageing (FRTA) predicts that oxidative stress, induced when levels of reactive oxygen species exceed the capacity of antioxidant defenses, causes ageing. Recently, it has also been argued that oxidative damage may mediate important life-history trade-offs. Here, we use inbred lines of the decorated cricket, Gryllodes sigillatus, to estimate the genetic (co)variance bet...

Ageing is a general feature of higher organisms. Evolutionary theories of ageing rest on a gradual decline of fitness sensitivity to changes in survival and fecundity with age, so traits expressed late in life are less favoured by natural selection than those expressed early in life. From the life-history perspective, ageing may result from a scheme of optimal resource allocation in which inves...

The pair-correlation function applied to 3D Atom Probe reconstructed volumes has been used to study the influence of a pre-ageing treatment (363K) on the early stages of precipitation at 458K in an Al-Mg-Si 6016 alloy. Mg-Si short-range positive pair correlation (clustering) is shown to form after a pre-ageing treatment. The hetero-atomic clusters are thought to act as preferential nucleation s...

Tom Kirkwood is Professor of Medicine and Director of the Institute for Ageing and Health at Newcastle University, UK. After training in mathematics and biology at the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford he first worked on the measurement of blood clotting and fibrinolytic factors. Early in his career he began an interest in the biology of ageing which he has followed since 1975. In 1977 he pu...

This paper reviews research findings concerning memory performance in Alzheimer's disease (AD) and normal ageing. Studies using clinical (i.e., episodic) memory tests are compared with studies using various experimental memory paradigms (semantic memory, implicit memory, working memory), in order to determine their efficiency to differentiate between AD and normal ageing. In addition, attention...