On October 12 and 13, the International Seminar «Aging and Senile Asthenia in Norway and Russia» took place in Moscow. The two-day seminar featured meetings of researchers in the field of aging and senile asthenia for the scientific exchange of knowledge and the development of further cooperation. Based on the International Project on Cardiovascular Diseases in Russia and the Know Your Heart study, a new project was initiated, dedicated to the problems of early aging in Russia and Norway.
Chief Researcher of the Research Laboratory of Epidemiology of Noncommunicable Diseases, Dr. Oksana Rotar made a presentation entitled “Leningrad siege survivors – a unique Russian cohort for the study of longevity.”
Dr. Rotar spoke about healthy aging (when an aging person retains physical and cognitive capabilities) and mentioned the residents of besieged Leningrad as a unique example of people who experienced stress in the early stages of life and have survived to this day.
According to Dr. Rotar, one of the ways to assess the state of the body is the vascular age, which may exceed the passport age (premature aging of the vessels), coincide with it (normal aging) or be better (“supernormal” aging of the vessels). In the group of studied residents of besieged Leningrad, 11% of the participants had supernormal aging, i.e. their vessels were younger than their chronological age. The main determining factors for the study were normal blood pressure and triglyceride levels corresponding to body weight. The goal of scientists is to search for factors that allow keeping blood vessels in an ideal state (perhaps these are genetic, psychosocial or behavioral characteristics of these patients).