A study on animals with autoimmune myocarditis was recently released in the journal Cell Reports [1], showing the impact of heart inflammation on the types of immune cell that are formed in the heart. This could have a significant impact on our understanding of cardiac aging.

What is myocarditis and how is it relevant to aging?

Myocarditis is a disease involving inflammation of the heart. It mainly influences people between the ages of 20 and 51 [2] [3]; however, the elderly are still affected to some degree. The disease has been known to cause serious complications, such as heart attack and heart failure.

A common concern about life extension is overpopulation, the idea that there are too many people in the world. Are we really headed for a global overpopulation meltdown, as some people believe? The United Nations’ World Population Prospects 2019 report suggests that while the global population will continue to rise for the next few decades, ultimately, that rise will plateau.

First things first: it’s population growth, not overpopulation

Whenever the topic of defeating age-related diseases comes up, there is inevitably someone who will cite overpopulation as an objection to healthy life extension and a reason why we should continue to let people become sick and die of diseases that science may be able to cure in the coming decades.

SELF-RENEWAL Fluorescent markers reveal which genes are turned on as hydras’ stem cells develop into specific cell types. For instance, nerve cells light up magenta in one hydra (second from left). Another (second from right) shows gene activity behind two of the stages of development (early, green; late, red) of the animal’s stinging cells.