Survivors of Nuclear Weapon Use in Early Life Exhibit Accelerated Immune Aging in Late Life

It probably strains the meaning of the term to call the aftermath of the use of nuclear weapons at the end of the Second World War a natural experiment, but nonetheless there has been considerable study of survivors from those events and their health relative to control populations in other parts of Japan. Irradiation is known to produce what is effectively accelerated aging in the context of cancer treatment, producing an increased burden of senescent cells that then ensure the later course of health for survivors is worse than would otherwise be the case, absent both cancer and treatment. In the case of exposure to radiation deriving from the use of smaller nuclear weapons, analogous lasting effects have emerged. It is unclear as to how indirect the observed effects on immune function might be most of a lifetime after the event. The researchers here focus on oxidative stress, known to go hand in hand with chronic inflammation. That in turn can arise from an increased burden of senescent cells, but it is far from clear that this is the only (or even primary) mechanism when considering health 50 to 60 years after exposure, rather than the more usual case in medical science of the 10 to 20 years following a later life cancer treatment. Still, the evidence to date suggests that an increased senescent cell burden can last for quite some time, despite the body's demonstrated ability to clear these cells at some pace, even in late life. In today's open access paper, ...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs