Advances in medicine have had many beneficial results, most of which have given way to an increased standard of living and as a result have managed to extend life expectancy. At the beginning of this new millennium, life expectancy doubled to approximately 80 years of age when compared to what it was in 1900. This extension of life has emphasized the necessity for a better understanding of the medical aspects of aging. Since the older population has grown at a very high rate, efforts to provide adequate healthcare for the elderly has become a major goal.
The immune system is of utmost importance in every individual and more so in the aging adult. This protective system has been found to deteriorate as the person ages, and since it is associated with every tissue and organ in the body, research efforts have been aimed at acquiring a better understanding of how it works and why it is vulnerable to advancing age.
Immunogerontology is a new field that aims to study the immune system in the aging adult. Results from experiments done in this field have yielded few data to date and the results that have been generated have come under scrutiny as the new field becomes established and accepted protocols are put in place. Preliminary results however have verified and documented that the immune system becomes sluggish in its attempts to respond to stimuli and that these changes are the result of cumulative variations at the chemical, cellular, and organ levels.
T cells are a major constituent of the immune system and are responsible for spearheading most attacks on pathogenic invaders and for promoting other cells to participate in an immunological cascade. These highly specialized lymphocytes mature and differentiate within the thymus, a gland located above the heart. In a study done by Douek and colleagues (1998) that was published in Nature, the group was able to confirm a process known as "thymic involution". This process de...