When it comes to brain function, degeneration caused by aging can be a complicated and quite painful experience to navigate. Issues such as Dementia, Alzheimer's, Huntington's, and general age-related cognitive decline are all aging-associated illnesses. Disorders that millions of Americans face every day. Researchers believe they have found a way to reverse the effects caused by age-related cognitive decline. More compelling, the applications of this frontier medicine could be used to help the average person delay or even prevent memory loss.
The University of California, San Francisco, in a 2025 study published in MSN, made some surprising breakthroughs. There is a protein found in the brain called ferritin light chain 1 (FTL1). Studying aging mice, they found the protein amassed in the brain's memory center over time. When they reduced the (FTL1) in older mice, cognitive performance improved back to levels normally seen in juvenile mice.
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What to know about the protein FTL1
Iron is very important for the body as it's necessary for making blood and distributing energy to the cells. When needed, iron can be used to help muscles and the brain function better. FTL1 is like a little iron storage box. Without it, iron would amass and move around, causing problems. FTL1, doing what it is designed to do, can disrupt and deprive neurons of the energy needed for things like memories.
Researchers found that increasing levels of FTL1 in healthy young mice caused the animals to experience memory impairments. The decrease of these protein levels in older mice, the exact opposite, improved their memory. "It is truly a reversal of impairments. It’s much more than merely delaying or preventing symptoms," said senior author of the paper Saul Villeda. The study conducted at the UCSF Bakar Aging Research Institute and published in Nature Aging aims for the research to encompass a much broader share of the older adult population. FTL1 is connected to the typical memory decline that comes with aging. Decline that occurs even without the more drastic implications of disease like Alzheimer's. Finding ways to treat cognitive change for those suffering brain-related disorders, as well as normal age-related decline, could bring massive and exciting change to brain health.
Things to do while you wait for technology to catch up
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- The first way to take care of your brain starts with diet. A 2024 study in the National Institutes of Health found the MIND diet, Mediterranean-Dash Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay, reduced cognitive risk by 4% in men and 8% in women. Studying 30,000 participants over 10 years showed that close adherence to a diet of leafy vegetables, whole grains, beans, nuts, and occasional fish had a dramatic, positive effect on cognitive health. The diet includes avoiding meat, sweets, cheese, fast food, and fried foods.
- Get physically and mentally active. Regular exercise improves blood flow to the brain and supports cognitive health. Even a 30-minute walk can promote strong benefits. A 2024 study in the National Library of Medicine revealed aerobic and resistance exercise paired with cognitive training improved memory, executive function, processing speed, and physical fitness.
- It's time for all of us to focus on getting better sleep. A 2024 study published in BMC linked shorter sleep with higher (Aβ) amyloid-β, which is a hallmark indicator of Alzheimer's disease. Another 2023 study reported in Springer Nature Link presented that even short-term sleep deprivation can impact cognition and memory.
Neuroscience, University of California. media4.giphy.com
As scientists continue to explore the mechanisms behind memory and brain aging, understanding proteins like FTL1 could open new pathways to slowing cognitive decline. While we await the next groundbreaking scientific advancements, traditional methods for taking care of our health will have to suffice.
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Pictured: A healthy practice?
Will your current friends still be with you after seven years?
Professor shares how many years a friendship must last before it'll become lifelong
Think of your best friend. How long have you known them? Growing up, children make friends and say they’ll be best friends forever. That’s where “BFF” came from, for crying out loud. But is the concept of the lifelong friend real? If so, how many years of friendship will have to bloom before a friendship goes the distance? Well, a Dutch study may have the answer to that last question.
Sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst and his team in the Netherlands did extensive research on friendships and made some interesting findings in his surveys and studies. Mollenhorst found that over half of your friendships will “shed” within seven years. However, the relationships that go past the seven-year mark tend to last. This led to the prevailing theory that most friendships lasting more than seven years would endure throughout a person’s lifetime.
In Mollenhorst’s findings, lifelong friendships seem to come down to one thing: reciprocal effort. The primary reason so many friendships form and fade within seven-year cycles has much to do with a person’s ages and life stages. A lot of people lose touch with elementary and high school friends because so many leave home to attend college. Work friends change when someone gets promoted or finds a better job in a different state. Some friends get married and have children, reducing one-on-one time together, and thus a friendship fades. It’s easy to lose friends, but naturally harder to keep them when you’re no longer in proximity.
Some people on Reddit even wonder if lifelong friendships are actually real or just a romanticized thought nowadays. However, older commenters showed that lifelong friendship is still possible:
“I met my friend on the first day of kindergarten. Maybe not the very first day, but within the first week. We were texting each other stupid memes just yesterday. This year we’ll both celebrate our 58th birthdays.”
“My oldest friend and I met when she was just 5 and I was 9. Next-door neighbors. We're now both over 60 and still talk weekly and visit at least twice a year.”
“I’m 55. I’ve just spent a weekend with friends I met 24 and 32 years ago respectively. I’m also still in touch with my penpal in the States. I was 15 when we started writing to each other.”
“My friends (3 of them) go back to my college days in my 20’s that I still talk to a minimum of once a week. I'm in my early 60s now.”
“We ebb and flow. Sometimes many years will pass as we go through different things and phases. Nobody gets buttsore if we aren’t in touch all the time. In our 50s we don’t try and argue or be petty like we did before. But I love them. I don’t need a weekly lunch to know that. I could make a call right now if I needed something. Same with them.”
Maintaining a friendship for life is never guaranteed, but there are ways, psychotherapists say, that can make a friendship last. It’s not easy, but for a friendship to last, both participants need to make room for patience and place greater weight on their similarities than on the differences that may develop over time. Along with that, it’s helpful to be tolerant of large distances and gaps of time between visits, too. It’s not easy, and it requires both people involved to be equally invested to keep the friendship alive and from becoming stagnant.
As tough as it sounds, it is still possible. You may be a fortunate person who can name several friends you’ve kept for over seven years or over seventy years. But if you’re not, every new friendship you make has the same chance and potential of being lifelong.