Does the Human Immune System Ever Really Become "senescent"?

Overview

Journal F1000Res

Specialties Biomedical Engineering
Science

Date 2017 Sep 5

PMID 28868129

Citations 11

Authors

Graham Pawelec

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Like all somatic tissues, the human immune system changes with age. This is believed to result in an increased frequency of, and susceptibility to, infectious disease and to contribute to a wide range of non-communicable age-associated diseases in later life, especially cancer, cardiovascular disease, and autoimmunity. The majority of studies addressing immune ageing has been cross-sectional, but limited longitudinal studies are contributing to a better understanding of age-associated changes, as opposed to differences, and their clinical relevance. However, intriguing differences are emerging that implicate highly context-dependent immune ageing processes, mitigating against current generalisations concerning human immunosenescence and indicating the necessity for detailed comparisons of different populations, even those that would appear quite similar at first glance.

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