Better Vaccines for Older People are a Poor Alternative to Better Immune Systems for Older People

The paper here offers a good overview of recent research and development aimed at improving the effectiveness of vaccines in old people. Vaccines are only poorly effective in the old because of the age-related decline of the immune system. A great deal of effort, with only some success, has gone into trying to improve vaccine effectiveness in older populations. Even if tinkering with vaccines boosts the percentage of patients who exhibit an immune response, however, that response is always going to be more anemic than that of a younger person, given the effects of aging on the immune system. This time and funding would perhaps be better directed towards ways to reverse the decline of the immune system, rather than towards the discovery of ever more complex ways of provoking the age-impaired immune system into a response. Infectious diseases are a major cause for morbidity and mortality in the older population. Demographic changes will lead to increasing numbers of older persons over the next decades. Prevention of infections becomes increasingly important to ensure healthy aging for the individual, and to alleviate the socio-economic burden for societies. Undoubtedly, vaccines are the most efficient health care measure to prevent infections. Age-associated changes of the immune system are responsible for decreased immunogenicity and clinical efficacy of most currently used vaccines in older age. Efficacy of standard influenza vaccines is only 30-50% in the older popu...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs