Shaking Off Illness May Get Tougher With Age
Shaking Off Illness May Get Tougher With Age
Aging Immune System May Be Why, Study of Rats Shows
Oct. 14, 2005 -- Age may sometimes bring wisdom, but it might not be a big plus for your immune system.
In a recent study, older mice had a harder time shaking off an infection than younger adult mice.
What does age have to do with it? To find out, the researchers did some sophisticated brain and gene tests on the mice.
Their results recently appeared in the Federation of the American Societies of Experimental Biology Journal.
Researcher Rodney Johnson, PhD, MS, and colleagues exposed healthy adult mice to an E. coli-related bacterium. Some of the mice were young adults. Others were in the twilight of the usual mice life span.
As you might imagine, none of the mice acted very sprightly after being exposed to the bacteria. They all got sick, became listless, ate less, and lost weight.
The sick mice also weren't very social. They didn't pay much attention when the researchers put a juvenile mouse in each of their cages. Such company would usually be a big deal to a mouse.
The younger adult mice bounced back from their infection in 24 hours. The older mice were still acting pretty sickly at that point, the study shows.
"As expected, young adults showed signs of improvement eight hours after [infection] and fully recovered by the next day, but the aged animals were still 50% to 60% depressed," says researcher Rodney Johnson, PhD, MS, in a news release.
"We've completed follow-up studies that show aged animals are still depressed three to four days later," he says.
Depressed, in this sense, means reduction of normal social behavior.
Johnson is a professor of integrative biology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
The researchers' theory goes like this: The older mice's brains and immune systems don't chat very efficiently, which bogs down recovery.
In contrast, the younger mice's brains and immune systems worked well together.
If you could step inside the brain, you might see what they mean.
Shaking Off Illness May Get Tougher With Age
Aging Immune System May Be Why, Study of Rats Shows
Oct. 14, 2005 -- Age may sometimes bring wisdom, but it might not be a big plus for your immune system.
In a recent study, older mice had a harder time shaking off an infection than younger adult mice.
What does age have to do with it? To find out, the researchers did some sophisticated brain and gene tests on the mice.
Their results recently appeared in the Federation of the American Societies of Experimental Biology Journal.
Bad Bug Blahs
Researcher Rodney Johnson, PhD, MS, and colleagues exposed healthy adult mice to an E. coli-related bacterium. Some of the mice were young adults. Others were in the twilight of the usual mice life span.
As you might imagine, none of the mice acted very sprightly after being exposed to the bacteria. They all got sick, became listless, ate less, and lost weight.
The sick mice also weren't very social. They didn't pay much attention when the researchers put a juvenile mouse in each of their cages. Such company would usually be a big deal to a mouse.
Bouncing Back
The younger adult mice bounced back from their infection in 24 hours. The older mice were still acting pretty sickly at that point, the study shows.
"As expected, young adults showed signs of improvement eight hours after [infection] and fully recovered by the next day, but the aged animals were still 50% to 60% depressed," says researcher Rodney Johnson, PhD, MS, in a news release.
"We've completed follow-up studies that show aged animals are still depressed three to four days later," he says.
Depressed, in this sense, means reduction of normal social behavior.
Johnson is a professor of integrative biology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Frayed Communication
The researchers' theory goes like this: The older mice's brains and immune systems don't chat very efficiently, which bogs down recovery.
In contrast, the younger mice's brains and immune systems worked well together.
If you could step inside the brain, you might see what they mean.
