For how we live.
Losing the ability to walk is a turning point in later life. In a large randomised trial, structured activity cut the rate of major mobility disability — evidence that movement protects independence, read honestly.
Even frail people in their 80s and 90s roughly doubled their strength in ten weeks of training. But muscle size barely moved — the honest expectation is a big gain in function and a modest one on the scale.
In 2,292 older adults, weak quadriceps tracked with higher mortality — but muscle size, measured by CT and DXA, did not. The finding reshaped how sarcopenia is defined and moved the target from bulk to strength.
In 34,485 older adults, each 0.1 m/s of walking speed tracked with better survival. At age 75, predicted 10-year survival ran from 19% to 91% across the range — but speed reflects health, not the reverse.
Frailty has firm diagnostic criteria and predicts falls, hospital stays and death. It is also, unusually, treatable: resistance training raised muscle strength 113% even in nursing-home residents in their late 80s.
Twenty-one years of cancer follow-up, multimorbidity data to 2021, and a randomised trial in frail older adults. In each, metformin did not beat placebo. Lifestyle change did.
A $12 million gift will test whether low-dose rapamycin changes the transition to frailty in adults over 65 — the first study of the drug designed around an outcome rather than a biomarker.
A meta-analysis of 20 trials found a two-kilogram gain in one-rep max and no effect on bone density. A small crossover trial found functional strength gains largely independent of muscle mass.