Angiotensin Receptor Autoimmunity Correlates with Age-Related Frailty and Hypertension

Autoimmunity is the name given to a very large class of conditions in which the immune system malfunctions and attacks the body's own cells and machinery. Each different inappropriate target produces a different autoimmune condition, ranging from demyelination diseases like multiple sclerosis, in which the immune system attacks processes and molecules necessary for maintenance of the sheath of myelin that coats nerves, to inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, in which the most obvious damage occurs at the joints. In between lie autoimmune conditions for near every important aspect of our biochemistry. While it is true that the best known autoimmune conditions are not all that age-related - rheumatoid arthritis is noted as "a disease of young women" by some sources, for example - autoimmunity in the general sense does grow with age. The immune system is immensely complex even when working correctly, but the dark forest of the aged, dsyfunctional immune system is especially poorly mapped. New forms of autoimmunity and other immune system malfunctions are discovered on a regular basis. Look at the recent unveiling of type 4 diabetes as a more esoteric example of the age-damaged immune system causing issues in important tissues. It is a condition that is probably quite prevalent in the old, yet missed until now. There are no doubt a great many forms of autoimmune disease presently hiding in the margins of age-related frailty and medical conditions, yet to be catalog...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs