Tool that calculates immune system age could predict frailty and disease
New research from the Stanford University School of Medicine and the Buck Institute for Research on Aging is demonstrating a new tool that can calculate a person’s immune system age. The findings suggest tracking the degree of low-grade chronic inflammation that appears as we age could help predict frailty and disease before symptoms appear.
“Every year, the calendar tells us we’re a year older,” explains David Furman, senior author on the new study published in Nature Aging. “But not all humans age biologically at the same rate. You see this in the clinic – some older people are extremely disease-prone, while others are the picture of health.”
As we age our immune system can become dysfunctional. Not only is it less effective at mounting a strong response against pathogens but it also begins to mistakenly target normal cells.
One hypothesis argues that the chronic, low-grade systemic inflammation generated by an aging immune system plays a major role in the development of many age-related diseases. But until now there hasn’t been any way to measure this low-grade inflammation and predict who is immunologically aging faster and more at risk of age-related disease.
