close this window
Teaching an Old Immune System New Tricks
Researchers have found a protein that may be the immune system’s fountain of youth.
Researchers from Germany’s Hemholtz Centre for Infection Research may have discovered a treatment to make old immune systems young again. Their results, published in the Journal of Pathology, suggest that a growth protein may have a “fountain of youth” effect on the immune system.
The scientists, led by Eva Medina, examined the immune system decline associated with aging. By comparing immune system responses of young mice (2 to 3 months old) and old mice (equivalent of 70- and 80-year-old humans) to bacterial infections, the researchers discovered that as mice age, they lose microphages.
Those are a type of cell that fights infecting bacteria. In conjunction with other cells, they form the front lines of the immune system. But as both people and mice grow old, their immune systems change: Infections come more often and with greater intensity.
Medina believes that keeping the immune system working longer and better can help people live longer, healthier lives. “Since the immune system protects our body against infections, to keep the immune system young and functional is a crucial factor for healthy aging,” she says.
Her team looked at the reactions of young and old mice to Streptococcus pyogenes, which is probably best known for causing strep throat. But it can also cause life-threatening infections like impetigo, scarlet fever and cellulitis, especially in elderly people. While the young mice were able to fight off the invading bacteria, the older mice – even those infected with fewer bacteria – died.
Later, the researchers studied the differences in the immune systems of the young mice and their older counterparts. They found that the aged mice had fewer microphages in their tissue than the younger ones.
The team treated the older mice with the specific protein that affects microphage counts to see if it could increase their ability to ward off infections. They found that the repeated preventive treatment did help them maintain their microphages and efficiently fight infective bacteria — a result that may help the elderly stave off disease.
While their research certainly won’t help Grandma look like she’s 20 again, it may help her immune system act like it.
Sign up for our free e-newsletter.
Are you on Facebook? Become our fan.
Follow us on Twitter.
word on the street
- coachkinsey
- Chearone Rincelawn
more in this section
Ritalin Can Wake the Brain From Anesthesia
More Reasons Not to Skip Your Broccoli
Listening for the Key to Reverse Aging
Science Comes to the Rescue of Lab Rats
Turning Off Huntington’s Disease
Attacking Breast Cancer in its Heel
Teen Steroid Use Suppresses Submissiveness
(Wheel) Running Addictions Away
Rats and That Vision Thing
Battling Down Syndrome Memory Loss
also by this author
Elisabeth BestFormer Miller-McCune Fellow Elisabeth Best is currently pursuing a Masters of Pacific International Affairs at the University of California, San Diego...
Lessons From China and India’s Newspaper BoomHow the print media in China and India are succeeding — and what America’s ailing journalism industry might learn from them.
Making Seed Aid BlossomThe quake in Haiti and floods in Pakistan highlight that the multimillion-dollar emergency seed aid industry is in need of a makeover.
When Migrant Workers Return HomeThousands of Latin-American migrants come to work in the United States every year, legally and illegally. But does their time in the U.S. help or hurt them when they return to their home countries?
Public Schools: An Untapped Recreational ResourceResearchers suggest limiting liability issues to make playgrounds and other recreation areas on school grounds accessible as a cost-effective way to promote public health.
Recreating the Creative Industry in New OrleansIn the wake of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans has been rebounding slowly. Five years after the disaster, researchers suggest that the city promote its entertainment industry as a development strategy.
Receive 1 year (6 issues) of our print magazine for just $14.95. Miller-McCune features polished, in-depth reports on research and solutions across the policy spectrum — from health care, education and energy to international affairs, poverty and the global economy. It's a must read for well-informed and solutions-driven individuals.
follow us on:
join our newsletter:
from the source
The wage gap between the sexes in America has been closing much faster than anyone realized, but that’s tempered by learning it’s been much wider than measurements had shown.
An effort to identify five performing orcas as slaves failed in part, argues one scholar, because there’s no legal precedent establishing them as persons.
New research finds listeners judge symphonic music differently when they’re told the conductor is a woman.
Transportation used to be one of the few guaranteed areas of agreement when ideology trumped pragmatism in D.C. But that’s no longer the case.
New research suggests less-creative people do more innovative thinking when they are told individualism is the norm, and instructed to conform.
