Barbra Streisand center leads $7.5m NIH study on women’s healthy aging

Women’s health research is shifting towards a whole-body approach, connecting heart, brain, mobility and ageing to improve long-term wellbeing. Aging is rarely a single-system story. The heart, brain, muscles and blood vessels change together, yet medical research has often studied them separately. A new five-year research project at Cedars-Sinai is taking a broader view, investigating whether damage to the body’s smallest blood vessels could help explain several health challenges women face as they grow older.Backed by a $7.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Institute on Aging (NIA), the study brings together specialists in cardiovascular health, neurology, biostatistics and frailty research. At its centre is a question with implications far beyond cardiology: could understanding tiny blood vessels reveal new ways to protect the ageing heart, brain and body?Looking beyond the heartThe research is being led by investigators at the Smidt Heart Institute’s Barbra Streisand Women’s Heart Center, named after the legendary singer and actor following her $10 million donation to Cedars-Sinai.The new initiative, known as the Microvascular Aging Ef...