Efforts Continue to Use COVID-19 as a Learning Moment Regarding the Costs of Aging

Near everyone who dies from the SARS-Cov-2 virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic is old. The old are vulnerable firstly because their immune systems are much diminished in effectiveness, and secondly because the state of chronic inflammation characteristic of old age makes the cytokine storm that causes much of the SARS-Cov-2 mortality more likely and more severe. Members of the medical research community focused on intervention in the aging process - a way to treat all age-related conditions by addressing their underlying causes - are attempting to use the attention given to COVID-19 to educate the public and policy makers. Any number of influenza seasons, in which the vast majority of the dead are elderly, seems to have failed to get the point across: that the age-related decline of the immune system causes great harm, and that harm might be significantly reduced in the future given a focus on research and development for immune rejuvenation. But perhaps this pandemic will cause people to listen. Hope springs eternal. Understanding how drugs can delay aging and related diseases is part of a larger scientific endeavor supported by the National Institute on Aging and others called geroscience. This approach aims to understand and ultimately modify the basic biology of aging and in so doing, develop new paradigms to treat multiple age-related chronic diseases at the same time. Geroscientists have long hypothesized that by targeting the biology of aging, a...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs