(ISSN 2638-1311)
OBM Geriatrics is an international peer-reviewed Open Access journal published quarterly online by LIDSEN Publishing Inc. The journal takes the premise that innovative approaches – including gene therapy, cell therapy, and epigenetic modulation – will result in clinical interventions that alter the fundamental pathology and the clinical course of age-related human diseases. We will give strong preference to papers that emphasize an alteration (or a potential alteration) in the fundamental disease course of Alzheimer’s disease, vascular aging diseases, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, skin aging, immune senescence, and other age-related diseases.
Geriatric medicine is now entering a unique point in history, where the focus will no longer be on palliative, ameliorative, or social aspects of care for age-related disease, but will be capable of stopping, preventing, and reversing major disease constellations that have heretofore been entirely resistant to interventions based on “small molecular” pharmacological approaches. With the changing emphasis from genetic to epigenetic understandings of pathology (including telomere biology), with the use of gene delivery systems (including viral delivery systems), and with the use of cell-based therapies (including stem cell therapies), a fatalistic view of age-related disease is no longer a reasonable clinical default nor an appropriate clinical research paradigm.
Precedence will be given to papers describing fundamental interventions, including interventions that affect cell senescence, patterns of gene expression, telomere biology, stem cell biology, and other innovative, 21st century interventions, especially if the focus is on clinical applications, ongoing clinical trials, or animal trials preparatory to phase 1 human clinical trials.
Papers must be clear and concise, but detailed data is strongly encouraged. The journal publishes a variety of article types (Original Research, Review, Communication, Opinion, Comment, Conference Report, Technical Note, Book Review, etc.). There is no restriction on the length of the papers and we encourage scientists to publish their results in as much detail as possible.
Publication Speed (median values for papers published in 2023): Submission to First Decision: 5.7 weeks; Submission to Acceptance: 17.9 weeks; Acceptance to Publication: 7 days (1-2 days of FREE language polishing included)
Special Issue
Do [or Can] Antioxidants Slow the Aging Process?
Submission Deadline: June 30, 2025 (Open) Submit Now
Guest Editor
Karen E. Burke, PhD
Clinical Professor, Department of Dermatology, Icahn School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA
Research Interests: Antioxidants to prevent and reverse photoaging and skin cancer; Environmental aging of the skin
About This Topic
This Special Issue of OBM Geriatrics will explore the most recent scientific research investigating the question “Will antioxidants slow the aging process?”.
There is no doubt that oxidative free-radical damage causes or contributes not only to many diseases of aging including cancer, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, cataracts, and immune system diseases, but also to “natural” aging processes. Although “oxidative stress” with generation of free radicals is not the only cause of aging, certainly molecular oxidative damage to cellular lipids, proteins, and DNA damages cells and extracellular tissue, contributing to the degenerative symptoms of aging. This damage by reactive oxygen species (ROS) is threefold: (1) peroxidation of membrane lipids by free-radical chain reactions; (2) formation of advanced glycation end products (AGEs); and (3) release of cytokines that stimulate signaling pathways, thereby activating inflammation and genes that modulate aging. With ongoing years, the body is exposed to cumulative external free radical damage from UV-exposure and environmental pollutants including cigarette smoke, industrial and traffic-generated airborne chemicals and particulate matter, ozone, and oxidative trace metal ions such as Fe(II) and Cu(II). All of this extrinsic oxidative stress accelerates aging. To combat this oxidative damage, our body has evolved an exquisite, complex network of interacting enzymes to quench free radicals (glutathione peroxidase and reductase, superoxide dismutase, catalase, thioredoxin reductase, and others). These enzymes interact with endogenous and exogenous low molecular weight nonenzymic antioxidants – some hydrophilic (such as vitamin C and glutathione), some lipohilic (vitamin E, coenzyme Q10, and retinoids) and some trace mineral cofactors (such as selenium and zinc). With aging, enzyme activity diminishes and levels of endogenously synthesized antioxidants decrease. Thus dietary and topical delivery of antioxidants is expected to enhance the body’s natural mechanisms to combat aging and disease.
This Special Issue will present the most recent research about the role, the mechanisms, and the requirements for formulations to assure stability, absorption (topical as well as dietary), activity, and optimal delivery of specific antioxidants. Evidence regarding efficacy of many newly available antioxidants (especially from botanical sources) will be included. This issue details the scientific evidence as to whether and which antioxidants can indeed retard, prevent, and/or reverse aging. Can antioxidants “make the difference between life and death, as well as influence how fast and how well we age,” as proposed by Lester Parker and Carol Coleman in The Antioxidant Manual? This Special Issue investigates this question.
Keywords
Mechanisms of oxidative aging; Intrinsic oxidative aging; Extrinsic environmental oxidative aging; Antioxidant enzymes; Synergistic antioxidants; Dietary antioxidants; Topical antioxidants
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted through the LIDSEN Submission System. Detailed information on manuscript preparation and submission is available in the Instructions for Authors. All submitted articles will be thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process and will be processed following the Editorial Process and Quality Control policy. Upon acceptance, the article will be immediately published in a regular issue of the journal and will be listed together on the special issue website, with a label that the article belongs to the Special Issue. LIDSEN distributes articles under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) License in an open-access model. The authors own the copyright to the article, and the article can be free to access, distribute, and reuse provided that the original work is correctly cited.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). Research articles and review articles are highly invited. Authors are encouraged to send the tentative title and abstract of the planned paper to the Editorial Office (geriatrics@lidsen.com) for record. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the Editorial Office.
Welcome your submission!
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Vidhi is a Clinical yoga therapist; mentor for yoga therapy training in Krishnamacharya tradition. She holds a MSc in Public health from Kings College London.
Mirela Olympia Fagarasan Palmer
Luigi Fontana, MD, PhD.jpg)
Zhong-Ting (Justin) is a PhD student from Nanyang Technological University (Singapore). He holds BSc in Applied Chemistry and MSc in Environmental Engineering. He was a R&D researcher of NanoMaterials Technology Pte Ltd in Singapore (2006-2012). His current research interests are functional nanomaterials synthesis & design, and their application into environmental/chemical engineering. He has published near 60 SCI papers in Applied Catalysis B, Chemical Engineering Journal and so on with H-Index 23. He also serviced as reviewers over 40 Journals such as Appl. Catal. B, Water Research, Chem. Eng. J, ACS Applied Materials & Interface, etc. He was honored such as “The Bsic Research Achievment 1st Award of CIESC”, “The ZJUT Fund Breeding Distinguished Young Scholars” etc.
Rolf Teschke studied Medicine in Munich and Marburg, where he finished his MD thesis before starting a residency at the Department of Pathology, University of Marburg. Subsequently and with a fellowship of the Deutsche Forschungsgmeinschaft, he worked at the Bronx VA Hospital/Mount Sinai Hospital in New York during 1972–1975 together with Professor Charles S. Lieber and successfully isolated MEOS and expanded its characterization. Back in Germany, he was at the Heinrich-Heine University in Düsseldorf with a focus on alcoholic liver disease, biochemical drug studies, and clinical intoxications by halogenated aliphatic hydrocarbons, where he became a Professor of Medicine. In 1987, he was offered a chief position and appointed as Director of the Medical Department II, City Hospital Hanau, Teaching Hospital of the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt/Main. His clinical and research interests are on liver injury by drugs and herbs including causality assessment by RUCAM in close association with Dr. Gaby Danan in Paris. A perfect cooperation exists also with Professor Tran Dang Xuan of the University of Hiroshima, Japan. Finally, he is the author of more than 275 publications including books and book chapters, and he is editor in chief of scientific journals and member of editorial boards.