Institute of inflammation and Ageing, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, West Midlands, UK.
Institute of inflammation and Ageing, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, West Midlands, UK; Institute of inflammation and Ageing, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, West Midlands B15 2GW, UK.
Exp Gerontol. 2018 May;105:70-77. doi: 10.1016/j.exger.2017.12.020. Epub 2017 Dec 28.
Despite increasing longevity, many old people are not in good health. There has been an increase in the prevalence of age-associated multi-morbidity (two or more chronic conditions in the same person). Also, severe infections, such as pneumonia, remain significant causes of mortality and morbidity in this aging group. Many chronic health conditions share risk factors such as increasing age, smoking, a sedentary life style and being part of a lower socioeconomic group. However, despite this, multi-morbidities often co-occur more commonly than would be predicted. This has led to the hypothesis that they share common underlying mechanisms. This is an important concept, for if it were true, treatments could be devised which target these common pathways and improve a number of age-associated health conditions. Many chronic illnesses associated with multi-morbidity and severe infections are characterized by an abnormal and sustained inflammatory response, with neutrophils being key effector cells in the pathological process. Studies have described aberrant neutrophil functions across these conditions, and some have highlighted potential mechanisms for altered cell behaviours which appear shared across disease states. It has been suggested that altered functions may represent neutrophil "senescence". This review considers how and why neutrophil functions change as the cell ages, and how and why neutrophil functions change as the host ages in health and disease and discusses whether neutrophil functions could be targeted to improve health outcomes in older adults.
尽管人们的寿命在延长，但许多老年人的健康状况并不理想。与年龄相关的多种疾病（同一人同时患有两种或两种以上的慢性疾病）的患病率有所增加。此外，严重感染（如肺炎）仍然是这一年龄组死亡和发病的重要原因。许多慢性健康状况都有共同的危险因素，如年龄增长、吸烟、久坐不动的生活方式以及社会经济地位较低。然而，尽管如此，多种疾病往往比预期的更常见地同时发生。这就产生了这样一种假设，即它们有共同的潜在机制。这是一个重要的概念，因为如果这是真的，就可以设计出针对这些共同途径的治疗方法，改善许多与年龄相关的健康状况。许多与多种疾病和严重感染相关的慢性疾病的特征是异常和持续的炎症反应，中性粒细胞是病理过程中的关键效应细胞。研究已经描述了这些疾病中异常的中性粒细胞功能，并且一些研究已经强调了改变细胞行为的潜在机制，这些机制似乎在疾病状态中是共享的。有人认为改变的功能可能代表中性粒细胞的“衰老”。这篇综述考虑了中性粒细胞功能随着细胞衰老以及宿主在健康和疾病状态下随着年龄增长而发生变化的方式和原因，并讨论了是否可以针对中性粒细胞功能来改善老年人的健康结果。
