Suchergebnisse

The purpose of the research is to identify the features of demographic aging in terms of gender problems in modern Russia. The most significant demographic transformation of the current century is the process of population aging. It is established that the distinctive characteristics of the demographic dynamics in our country are: changing age structure of the population against the background of low fertility connected with the second stage of depopulation in Russia; a significant lagging behind not only economically developed but also several developing countries in life expectancy for both women and men; prevailing demographic asymmetry by gender; low indicators of healthy life expectancy, which are calculated without taking into account the gender component; burden of age-related diseases accumulated by the age of 65. It is shown that in Russia the number of elderly and old women exceeds the number of their male coevals by more than 15 million. Social, technological, and demographic transformations impact the dynamics of social roles. The most important change is the growth of women in paid work throughout the world, including in Russia. And women of retirement age have a high risk of social isolation. For many Russian pensioners with low per capita income and no savings the main strategy is that of survival. So now the most topical problem is changing the stereotype of women's old age, associated with such concepts as lack of development, untidy appearance of a person without gender and desires that causes physical rejection.

Current trends in fertility are similar in most countries of the world. To reduce the level of fertility, actively manifested since the second half of the last century, important changes in the calendar of births were added. The classical indicators of demographic statistics are more often dealing with the intensity of fertility, to a lesser extent — with the timing of fertility. The authors made an attempt to compile a system of indicators for the timing, which was then used to study the stages and types of ageing of fertility.

The author's point of view is presented, according to which, formulated back in the 80s of the last century by Yu.M. Lopukhin et al., the cholesterol theory of aging and death is now often misunderstood by many biologists and physicians. It is emphasized that this theory prioritized not the well-known role of cholesterol (CS) in metabolic processes, but its structural role in the plasma membrane of the cell. It was assumed that an increase in the microviscosity of the cell membrane due to the accumulation of CS in it leads to a deterioration in the transfer of external signals and nutrients to the cell, as well as to a decrease in the activity of membrane enzymes. This, according to the authors, triggers the occurrence of "senile" changes in cells, tissues and organs, and then in the entire multicellular organism, which ultimately leds to an increase in the probability of its death, that is, to aging. At the same time, the content of CS (mainly, of considered to be especially "bad" CS of low density lipoproteins) in serum was assigned only a minor role, because its increase is not at all necessary, according to the authors of the concept, leads to adverse changes in the body. This paper briefly discusses the evolution of ideas about the possible role of CS in aging and the development of various age-related pathologies, mainly cardiovascular diseases and mental disorders. Experimental data on the effect of liposomes containing both normal and oxidized CS on the proliferative activity of cultured cells are analyzed. The data of longitudinal studies are considered, suggesting that, paradoxically, it is people with elevated levels of CS in the blood plasma who live to an advanced age. At the same time, the consumption of large amounts of food rich in CS may not affect the health of some patients. It is noted that a number of studies indicate the absence of a causal relationship between the level of CS in serum and the occurrence of atherosclerotic changes. It is emphasized that CS is a very important compound for our body, without which cell proliferation and, as a result, normal regeneration are impossible. It is noted that there is a continuously increasing amount of data on the negative role of statins in the formation of age-related pathology, especially in people of older age groups. It is concluded that at present it becomes obvious that there is a need for a significant reappraisal (using the systems approach) of ideas about the possible role of CS in aging, the development of atherosclerosis and other age-related diseases, as well as dementias due to various causes, including Alzheimer's disease.

The history of the creation of the course of lectures "Basics of the Biology of Aging" at the School of Biology of Lomonosov Moscow State University, as well as at the Department of Life Science and Engineering of Harbin Institute of Technology is brie y described. In the process of teaching this course, the author got the impression that its main provisions may also be of interest to students of non-biological specialties, who have recently been quite often involved in the work on the implementation of gerontological grants. This is largely determined, apparently, by the signi cantly increased funding for this kind of research in recent years. In turn, this is a consequence of the fact that the average life span of people in developed countries has increased dramatically over the past decades. However, the maximum life span has not changed much (it is now the same as it was thousands of years ago, it is just that the chances of living to the age of a centenarian have become much greater). If earlier people often died at an early age from various diseases not related to age (mainly infectious diseases), now, due to signi cant advances in medicine, most people live to old age. As a result, death "from aging" is becoming more common. At the same time, many people have a very vague idea of what aging is, what are its mechanisms and how to ght it. In this regard, in 2022, an interschool elective course of lectures was organized at MSU for students of any departments of the university, except for the School of Biology itself. It is called "Basics of the biology of aging, or everything you wanted to know about aging (but were afraid to ask)." The material of the lectures was specially adapted for students who are not biologists by their main specialty. The main emphasis in the course, consisting of 12 lectures, is made on the fundamental de nitions and methodical/methodological approaches used in gerontology. The article lists the questions submitted for the students' test and brie y analyzes its results.

The article comprehensively examines the original archival materials of the 1939 census and analyzes the social structure and professional composition of the rural population of the Belarusian-Russian-Ukrainian border region, the development of which for «strategic reasons» was not a priority in the plans of the Soviet mobilization modernization. It highlights main reasons and stages of gender imbalance development, changes in rural population of the region dynamics, in which the titular ethnic groups absolutely dominated and more than half were women. The historical and comparative analysis allowed us to establish a number of specific features of rural population socio-professional structure in the Belarusian part of the border region, which is emphasized in the article. The share of the titular ethnic group among specialists, education workers, service workers, new professions related to maintenance of machinery and mechanisms, planning and selection work, and professional activities requiring high qualifications and education was lower in the Belarusian regions compared to Russian and Ukrainian ones. The author concluded that technical and socio-cultural modernization in agriculture in Belarusian village took place more slowly than in neighboring border regions, as evidenced by the socio-professional appearance of its rural population on the eve of the Second World War, which interrupted this progressive process.