Reviewing the Complexity of Immunosenescence

The immune system becomes more inflammatory and less competent with advancing age, undergoing sweeping changes in immune cell characteristics and relative population sizes. The cells, structures, and processes that produce immune cells similarly undergo significant changes. Taken together, this is called immunosenescence, though many researchers choose to break out the inflammatory component of dysfunction into its own category, calling it inflammaging. One of the most important goals for the research community is to find ways to improve immune function in older people. Evidently, the decline of the immune system is an important aspect of aging. It produces many directly, obviously harmful consequences. The inability to defend against infectious disease leads to a tremendous death toll in older individuals, largely resulting from common infectious agents such as influenza, diseases that younger people can shrug off. Similarly, the ability to clear precancerous and senescent cells is also much reduced, driving the increased risk of cancer on the one hand, and the growing number of lingering senescent cells on the other. There are many more subtle issues, more poorly researched, however, in which aged immune cells play a harmful role, contributing to age-related disease and dysfunction in specific organs. Immunosenescence: molecular mechanisms and diseases Immunosenescence is a complex process that involves organ reorganization and numerous regulatory pro...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs