Insulin Metabolism May Affect Life Span via Effects on Innate Immune Function

Insulin metabolism is one of the better studied areas of biochemistry in connection with aging, and one of the earliest areas of focus for the aging research community. Dysfunction of insulin metabolism, meaning loss of insulin sensitivity, is characteristic of obesity and the slide into type 2 diabetes, and the manifestations of diabetes in some ways resemble accelerated aging. While one should not consider high levels of a single form of dysfunction to be accelerated aging, since normal aging is a specific mix of various forms of damage and dysfunction, it can be worth bearing in mind that there are mechanistic overlaps between diseases and aging. In today's open access paper, researchers connect insulin sensitivity with better function of the innate immune cells known as macrophages. Better insulin sensitivity ensures that macrophages change their behavior to be more ready to clear molecular waste and damaged cells from tissues, while suppressing inflammatory signaling. The researchers suggest that this could be enough to explain the link between insulin metabolism and life expectancy. Since insulin metabolism touches on near every other aspect of cellular behavior, that is a challenging hypothesis to prove, but it is something to think on. The function and inflammatory state of the immune system is clearly important in aging. Enhanced insulin-regulated phagocytic activities support extreme health span and longevity in multiple populations The immune...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs