Reviewing the Aging of the Adrenal Gland

The smaller organs of the body tend to receive less attention from scientists in the field of aging research. There is a lot of ground to cover and only so many research groups. Attention is first given to better studied tissues with proven, direct connections to better studied diseases and causes of mortality. This includes the larger organs such as heart, lungs, liver, and so forth. Chemical factories and cell factories such as the adrenal gland and thymus are clearly important in aging, but indirect effects spread across many different age-related conditions are, it seems, more difficult to study and more difficult to obtain funding to study. Still, while much remains to be filled in at the detail level, much is known of the aging of smaller organs like the adrenal gland. The open access paper here is an interesting read. The adrenal gland is an essential endocrine organ that is situated above the kidneys and functions to produce essential steroid hormones including mineralocorticoids, glucocorticoids, and androgens. The adrenal is composed of two compartments of distinct embryological origin: the cortex and the medulla, which are surrounded by an outer mesenchymal capsule layer. In this review, we will focus on age-related changes specifically within the adrenal cortex, which is subdivided into three functionally and histologically distinct zones. The outermost zone, the zona glomerulosa (zG), is responsible for the production of mineralocorticoids that re...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs