Chapter category: Immunology
Autoimmune Diseases, Aging and the CD4+ Lymphocyte: Why Does Insulin-Dependent Diabetes Mellitus Start in Youth, but Rheumatoid Arthritis Mostly at Older Age?
Immunosenescence
Edited by: Graham PawelecISBN: 978-0-387-76840-3
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Chapter authors:
Jacek M. Witkowski
Autoimmune diseases, still sometimes called ‘autoaggression’, result from the impaired and inappropriate reaction of the immune system to self antigens and cause cell and tissue damage and acute or chronic inflammatory processes. However, many profoundly different pathologies are collected together under the common designation ‘autoimmune diseases’. From the biogerontological viewpoint, the important point, of course, is whether any of the autoimmune diseases occurs more frequently in the elderly than in young people. It is established knowledge that the incidence of autoimmunity increases in the elderly. However, only certain defined autoimmune diseases, of which the most characteristic (and commonest) example would be rheumatoid arthritis (RA), follow this pattern. Reciprocally, other autoimmune disease with age‑related prevalence, such as insulin‑dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM), are typical for children and young adults. It has to be stressed that the age‑dependence of both these examples (and others) is clearly not absolute. There are many examples of RA occurring in young adults or even teenagers; in fact, some studies are describing semi‑separate ‘diseases’ of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, early onset RA and late onset RA, with the latter being the most frequent.1,1‑7 On the other hand, IDDM is observed also in the middle‑aged and elderly.8‑10 This suggests that although the underlying mechanism(s) of these and other autoimmune diseases is inappropriate recognition of self, inducing pathological immune reactions, the mechanisms leading to the immune attack are different.
Jacek M. Witkowski
Department of Pathophysiology, Medical University of Gdansk, Poland
Additional chapters from this book:
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SELDI Proteomics Approach to Identify Proteins Associated with T-Cell Clone Senescence
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In the previous OCTO immune longitudinal study of free‑living subjects >85 yr. selected for good health, we identified an Immune Risk Phenotype (IRP) associated with increased mortality. The IRP...
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Autoimmune Diseases, Aging and the CD4+ Lymphocyte: Why Does Insulin-Dependent Diabetes Mellitus Start in Youth, but Rheumatoid Arthritis Mostly at Older Age?
Jacek M. Witkowski
Autoimmune diseases, still sometimes called ‘autoaggression’, result from the impaired and inappropriate reaction of the immune system to self antigens and cause cell and tissue damage and acute or ch...
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Aging is associated with progressive decline in T‑cell functions. A number of mechanisms have been proposed to explain immunosenescence. In this chapter I will discuss a role of apoptosis of T&#...
