SEPT. 5, 2002 | Why do some older persons become frail and forgetful while others remain strong and alert?

Scientists at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) are following several threads as they try to unravel this mystery. After years of research in separate laboratories and various experiments with elderly volunteers, the scientists are collaborating in a wide-reaching project to study how frailty occurs and whether our genes can predict how long we will remain vigorous and alert.

Charlotte Peterson, Ph.D., a molecular biologist at the Donald W. Reynolds Department of Geriatrics in the UAMS College of Medicine, and at the Central Arkansas Veterans Health Care System, has found that stem cells in muscles tend to turn into fat-like cells called adipocytes. This phenomenon may contribute to frailty, or weakness and reduced ability to recover from muscle injuries. She reported her discovery to the scientific world earlier this year.

Now, Dr. Peterson will extend her studies of the transformation of muscle cells to fat cells, collaborating with Todd Trappe, Ph.D., a physiologist in the Department of Geriatrics. Last year, senior citizen volunteers permitted Dr. Trappe to remove tiny samples of muscle from their legs for a study of changes in muscle composition with age. Now Dr. Trappe, together with Bobby McGehee, Ph.D., and Marjorie Beggs, Ph.D., will test Dr. Peterson's laboratory findings about muscle loss in those individuals. The National Institute of Aging has provided approximately $900,000 in funding for their project, which will take three years.

Meanwhile, Dr. Peterson and several of her colleagues also are joining scientists who specialize in studying bones, the benefits of exercise, and Alzheimer's disease to investigate whether there are common factors at 
work in muscle loss, bone loss, and even memory loss - and if the same genes contribute to all three problems of aging. These projects utilize state-of-the-art technology called DNA