Inflammation and ageing.
An enhanced inflammatory state - i.e. "inflammatory/pathogen burden" - in the elderly on the one hand results from physiological immunosenescence and on the other hand is modified by the individual immune history: the latter is determined by sequential infectious/pathogenic events ("multiple hits"). Immunosenescence may prompt ageing of other organs. Cardiac ageing can be assessed by analysing heart rate variability. We present our hypothesis that the increasing "inflammatory/pathogen burden" of each organism during a lifetime significantly contributes to the cardiac ageing process. This hypothesis is grounded on the fact that a characteristic feature of the ageing heart - a narrowed heart rate variability - can be experimentally induced in humans by an inflammatory stimulus (endotoxin).
Müller-Werdan
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Universitätsklinik und Poliklinik für Innere Medizin III, Klinikum der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Ernst-Grube-Strasse 40, 06097, Halle, Germany. ursula.mueller-werdan@medizin.uni-halle.de
D000375:Aging / Q000276:immunology*; D000818:Animals; D006339:Heart Rate / Q000276:immunology*; D006801:Humans; D007113:Immunity, Innate / Q000276:immunology*; D007249:Inflammation / Q000276:immunology*; D018448:Models, Immunological; D009206:Myocardium / Q000276:immunology*