I am writing in different parts because it tends to disappear on me..😃
“Returning to the immune system specifically, part of the problem we face in old age is that our bodies produce fewer immune cells.”....
“In addition, immune cells in elderly people are poorer at detecting signs of disease and respond less efficiently to the protein molecules that direct them to a wound or the site of an infection. Although they are able to move just as fast as cells isolated from young people, they are there for less accurate in getting to where they are needed.”
I thought that was funny, so typical that we can forget where we are needed..you have to laugh a little..
« At the same time, signs of an active immune response-cytokines, clotting factors and other inflammatory molecules- are often found at higher levels in the blood of elderly people, even if they are not overt signs of infection. This phenomenon is sometimes called ‘inflamm-ageing’ »
So he said have your flu jabs and your pneumo jabs!! And I understood technically why we seem to go from one chest infection to another or are prone to catching a virus. Our immune cells retain a memory!!
Final part: “Crucially this means that older people have more of their immune cells devoted to battling previously encountered infections, leaving fewer immune cells available for the fight against new infections.”
Well it is sunny here today 🌼🌻🌼🌻
I hope the immune cells in my foot are going to respond as I am walking to town today!!
Endlessly fascinating, Fran. 🤗 I like the bite-sized excerpts.....I can keep up now! Cocoa over, into the fray (frey, frayed??!) next. Be careful with your poorly foot....a long job 🙀 Take care xx
As a rodent-phobe, I couldn’t even bring myself to ‘like’ that comment, Fran! 😱I won’t repeat the m word, but I suppose clean white ones kept very securely in labs, might be almost acceptable. Don’t expect an emoji for this!!!! I’ll stay with the flowers 💐 for all your efforts xx
I had always thought immune cells carried a memory of diseases they had encountered before that being why vaccinations worked viz. having encountered a small doses of an infection they fought it , won and remembered how they did when/if they encountered it again. What I didn't know is that we have a finite number of immune cells or at least lose the capacity to produce enough new ones, also that the old ones lose their efficacy or at least their sense of direction as they get older interesting thank you. xx
Well you put a finger on the problem. (I didn’t want to copy the book further because BSA ordered on Amazon 😃) but that’s because « the thymus which produces immune cells doesn’t work as well as we get older. »
There’s more to it.. « immune cells in the gut tolerate bacteria more readily than in the lung »!!
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stress and copd
Benefits of zinc
cHeston infections.
On the horizon
Seasonal flu jabs
