AGING THEORY: CAUSE 7: Immune Sensescence
A key cause of aging is the progressive failure of the immune system, particularly the cellular immune response from the thymus, which shrinks in most people with age. “Exceptionally long-lived people such as supercentenarians tend to spend their entire lives in good health, implying that their immune system remains active to protect against infections and tumors. “ Single-cell transcriptomics reveals expansion of cytotoxic CD4 T cells in supercentenarians. PNAS 2019. Bicycle riding has also been shown to help maintain the thymus and immune system. In addition to the cellular immune system of B, T, and natural killer cells, in the 1990s the molecular immune system was discovered. Vitamin D is changed into molecules that kill the first invading viruses and bacteria. Most people are deficient in vitamin D, and experts state everyone should take 2,000 IU of vitamin D daily. Most experts take 5,000 IU daily as of 2019.
Also take AREDs 2! Simin Meydani et al compared 60, 200, and 800 mg of vitamin E daily. They demonstrated that the 200 mg dosage was superior in elevating the immune response in elderly participants, and it is especially important to note that there were no adverse effects seen in this study, as has been consistently true for vitamin E. “88 free-living, healthy subjects at least 65 years old… were randomly assigned placebo or 60, 200, or 800 mg/d of vitamin E for 235 days… Subjects consuming 200 mg/d of vitamin E had a 65% increase in [immune cells]… No adverse effects were observed with vitamin E supplementation.” Meydani, S.N., et al. “Vitamin E supplementation and in vivo immune response in health elderly subjects”, JAMA 277: 1380-86 (1997))
AREDS 2 has 180mg vitamin E
