By Alison Satake – Mayo Clinic –
ROCHESTER, Minn. — The immune system is meant to protect the body from infection and disease. But with age, it can become less capable of doing so. However, Mayo Clinic researchers have found that some older people maintain “immune youth” – a new term coined by Mayo researchers to explain a young immune system in someone over age 60.
“We are studying why some individuals have a ‘fountain of youth’ in their immune systems. We want to learn from them,” says Cornelia Weyand, M.D., Ph.D., a Mayo Clinic rheumatologist and clinician-scientist. She is a lead author on a perspective paper published in Nature Aging.
