Why Do Some People Age More Healthily? Scientists Find New Clue

Why do some people age healthier than others at the same age? The answer may lie in the ratio of two groups of immune cells in the blood.

Zomit: Why do some people age healthier than others despite being the same age? The answer to this question may lie in the ratio of two groups of blood immune cells.

Two people may be born on the same day, but have completely different health conditions as they age. One remains relatively healthy until old age and the other suffers from chronic diseases. Scientists have now identified an important difference in people's immune systems that may explain why some people age healthier than others.

A new study shows that the ratio of two groups of immune cells in the blood is related to the risk of age-related diseases. This finding may help in the future to design a blood test that can be used to assess the aging process and the likelihood of health problems.

The immune system of young people has a large number of naive T cells; A type of white blood cell that has not yet encountered a specific pathogen. With the passage of time and as a result of being exposed to pathogens or receiving a vaccine, some of these cells become memory cells. These cells help the body to react faster if it encounters pathogens again.

Memory cells produce proteins called "Granzymes" that play a role in destroying infected cells. Granzyme K and Granzyme B are two types of these proteins. According to new research, people who have more granzyme K-producing memory cells in their body than granzyme B-producing cells, usually have a healthier aging process.

Maxim Artyumov, an immunologist at Washington University in St. Louis and one of the authors of the study, says that in the future, it may be possible to determine whether a person is on the path to healthy aging by examining the ratio of these two cell groups in the blood.

According to Live Science, scientists first examined the immune cells of more than 2,600 people between the ages of 18 and 97. The results showed that people who had a lower ratio of granzyme K to granzyme B producing cells in their body were more likely to suffer from autoimmune diseases and other chronic disorders of the immune system.

In the next step, the researchers examined the immune cells and blood proteins of 329 people and were able to identify a specific set of proteins that were associated with the abundance of granzyme B-producing cells. They called this pattern a "protein signature." Then the scientists looked for the same sign in the data of about 48,000 participants of the UK Biobank.

The results showed that people who, based on their blood proteins, were likely to have more granzyme B-producing cells, were more at risk of death and suffering from diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and liver and kidney diseases during the next 17 years.

Artyumov explains that more studies are needed to answer this question. He also points out the important difference between the immune system of humans and mice. In mice, granzyme K-producing cells are usually more mature and specialized, whereas in humans, granzyme B-producing cells have more of these characteristics.

According to Gustafsson, this difference shows that the results of animal experiments cannot always be directly extrapolated to humans. Immune cell characteristics may also vary in different human populations; Therefore, it is necessary to conduct research on diverse population groups.

In the future, scientists hope to be able to use the ratio of granzyme K to granzyme B and its associated protein signature to identify early signs of unhealthy aging. However, more research is still needed to turn this finding into a reliable medical test.