Inflammation is a necessary part of the immune response to injury and infection, required in order to defend and rebuild. Normally, inflammation is a cycle of signaling that changes cell behaviors, response followed by resolution. When resolution fails, serious consequences can result. Conditions such as sepsis and severe COVID-19 cases are examples of a runaway inflammatory response leading to a high mortality. Both of these examples are age-related, in the sense that old people are far more susceptible to undergoing such a breakdown of the normal inflammatory feedback loops. The age-related dysfunction of the immune system predisposes it to overactivation and inflammation, just as it also ma…
Arguing for a Central Role of Cellular Senescence in the Age-Related Susceptibility to Inflammatory Conditions
Inflammation is a necessary part of the immune response to injury and infection, required in order to defend and rebuild. Normally, inflammation is a cycle of signaling that changes cell behaviors, response followed by resolution. When resolution fails, serious consequences can result. Conditions such as sepsis and severe COVID-19 cases are examples of a runaway inflammatory response leading to a high mortality. Both of these examples are age-related, in the sense that old people are far more susceptible to undergoing such a breakdown of the normal inflammatory feedback loops. The age-related dysfunction of the immune system predisposes it to overactivation and inflammation, just as it also ma…