The bones of elderly people —— particularly women —— become more brittle with age. This can have an extremely serious impact on daily life if they suffer a fracture due to a fall, for example. Increasing bone density is crucial in order to extend healthy life expectancy. So, how can we do this? In fact, scientists say that being active during our elementary and junior high school period is important. Exercise habits in childhood affect future healthy life expectancy. However, the reality is that many children do no exercise. It is desirable for children to experience various forms of sport and physical play, in order to develop a sense of enjoyment from physical activity.

Arteriosclerosis is the phenomenon whereby arteries lose their flexibility as we age. While the extent of progression varies from one individual to another, depending on such factors as lifestyle, it is generally possible to delay the progression of arteriosclerosis through appropriate exercise. Moderate to vigorous aerobic exercise over a long period is effective, but as it takes at least two months for the effects to begin emerging, many middle-aged and older people give up before their arteriosclerosis improves and very few continue in the longer term. Accordingly, work is progressing on the development of biomarkers that can predict the effects of exercise. It is hoped that the ability to predict effects will help motivate people to continue exercising.

It is generally thought that a supple body leads to better physical performance and prevention of injury, but the idea of "the more flexible, the better" does not always seem feasible. Being flexible means having a large joint range of motion, with muscles and tendons that can be stretched more easily. However, experts say that, given the nature of muscle tissue and the structural vulnerability of joints, having large flexibility is not necessarily a good thing. Nevertheless, flexibility is a component of physical fitness and efforts to increase it are required in any kind of exercise, therefore we need to carry out body conditioning exercises using stretches appropriate to our objectives.

Quite a lot of people who dislike exercise say that it is because they have no sense of coordination, but there is no such thing as a person with innately slow reflexes. The inability to move one's body in the way one wishes is due to the fact the individual has not built up many of the neural circuits that form as a result of experience. Avoiding an activity because one feels one is not good at it creates a negative spiral, causing a growing dislike of exercise. Overcoming that aversion involves reversing that spiral: if you train in an environment you find enjoyable and keep persevering at it, you will improve without fail, which will make it even more fun. Being able to experience this first hand in a palpable way is the real thrill of sport and exercise.

Glycans are a type of sugar, consisting of monosaccharides linked together like chains. By linking to proteins and lipids in the body, glycans not only regulate their functions, but also play an important role in cell recognition and adhesion processes, which are involved in supporting life itself. Another of their functions is determining the timing of protein metabolism, with the life span of proteins in the body or blood determined by the glycans linked to them. At the same time, glycans are drawing attention as the third most important life chain for unraveling the mysteries of biological phenomena, behind the nucleic acids and proteins responsible for the diverse evolution of living organisms.

Oligosaccharides are known to be a low-energy sweetener offering the same degree of sweetness as sugar. In fact, they are equipped with a diverse array of functions, one of which is regulating the condition of the gut by serving as food for beneficial gut bacteria such as Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium. However, recent studies have shown that not only "good" bacteria, but also other gut bacteria can feed off them. Accordingly, attention has turned to oligosaccharides that promote the proliferation of beneficial bacteria alone, and development efforts in this area are progressing. Scientists say that in the future, it will be possible to use oligosaccharides to create next-generation prebiotics readily capable of improving the gut microbiota.

Stress is known to be the cause of various diseases, but it can also be a factor contributing to earlier onset of aging. One of several types of stress, glycative stress has come under the spotlight in recent years. Glycation is a phenomenon in which proteins in the body bond with leftover sugar due to excessive consumption and degrade, producing advanced glycation end products (AGEs), which expedite aging. The buildup of AGEs has an adverse impact on the body, as it is a risk factor for such conditions as dementia, diabetes, and arteriosclerosis. The only way to avoid this is, as one might expect, to ensure our sugar consumption remains at appropriate levels, and scientists say that what we eat, when we eat it, and how much we eat are crucial.

Sugar is an important nutrient that serves as a source of energy, and is crucial to maintaining bodily functions. As such parts of the body as the brain, nerves, and red blood cells are unable to use any sugars other than the monosaccharide glucose, it would be fair to say that sugar truly is a fundamental molecule with a direct connection to life itself. Its flavor and properties are essential in cooking, and its sweetness broadens the pleasure of eating. As such, sugar is an important presence in food, too. It also has a diverse array of other functions, including acting as a preservative, as it inhibits lipid oxidation, starch retrogradation, and protein denaturation. Understanding sugar properly and consuming an appropriate amount is the secret to staying healthy.

Produced by infected tissue, chemokines induce the migration of immune cells in the blood to the site of the infection, where the cells engulf the bacteria (a process called phagocytosis), bringing down the inflammation. However, if they continue to migrate, they can also attack healthy organs, triggering rheumatoid arthritis or other autoimmune diseases. Scientists had identified that the migration of immune cells due to chemokines was involved in autoimmune disease, but the details remained a mystery. However, the development of a new imaging system capable of visualizing immune cell and chemotactic factor dynamics and analyzing them in real time has brought to light the mechanisms involved.

Jellyfish, fireflies, and other organisms that emit light have their own unique luminescence mechanism. The first to be discovered was the protein that makes the jellyfish Aequorea victoria glow. Subsequently, this fluorescent protein was applied in the development of in vivo fluorescence imaging, enabling cells and tissues to be observed in real time while still alive. Life sciences research progressed substantially as a result. High-precision visualization is now possible, thanks to the development of imaging techniques that leverage the luminescence mechanisms of various organisms. These techniques are contributing to a multitude of areas, including the kinetic analysis of cancer cells.