SENS Research Foundation on COVID-19 and Aging

SENS Research Foundation here explains why COVID-19, like near all infectious disease, is far worse for the old. It isn't just a matter of the decline of immune function, though that is the bulk of it. Older people have a greater burden of damage and dysfunction that makes them less resilient in many other ways. Rising mortality due to infectious disease with age is the result of both (a) a greater likelihood of severe infection due to immune aging, and (b) that the individual is less likely to survive a severe infection due to general frailty. Tens of thousands die every year in the US from seasonal influenza; that is largely ignored, taken as a fact of life when considered at all. But the research and medical communities are on the verge of being able to reverse the consequences of aging, to develop rejuvenation therapies that will improve immune function and resilience in the old. This work needs greater support than it presently receives if we are to see significant progress over the next decade. Through all the daily updates on the sick and the dead, on testing and hospital capacity and changing public health guidance, there remains one constant: by far the greatest predictor of death from the COVID-19 pandemic is age. The so-called comorbidities predisposing patients to death from COVID-19 - chronic lung diseases, damaged kidneys and hearts, high blood pressure, diabetes - are themselves aspects of aging, erupting in their distinctive ways in particular tissues...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs