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Why do older people have weak immunity?

In immunology, there is the concept of immunological deficiency (weak immunity). The phenomenon of immunological deficiency has different causes:

Immunological deficiency can develop due to a disease associated with HIV infection, when the work of the immune system is practically paralyzed by the corresponding viral infection.

Immunological deficiency can result from any debilitating chronic infectious disease, and is associated with long-term continuous activity of the immune system - the resources of the immune system are excessively spent on long-term resistance to infection.

Immunological deficiency manifests itself when the functions of the immune system are inhibited also in the treatment of many chronic diseases in cases requiring the administration of drugs - immunosuppressants that suppress the effect of immunity (for example, in the treatment of lupus erythematosus, autoimmune vasculitis, during transplantations). This is justified by the fact that autoimmune diseases requiring immunosuppressive therapy develop just against the background of the active work of the immune system against human health. And the transplant material is generally regarded by the immune system as a material foreign to the body. And, in order to prevent the immune system from destroying the body, drugs that weaken the activity of the immune system are included in the treatment.

Similar phenomena of a suppressed immune system are observed in the treatment of chronic diseases (skin diseases, allergic diseases, rheumatic and other diseases) with corticosteroids, which have an effect that suppresses the functioning of the immune system. Although the effect of such drugs is short-term, with prolonged use (for chronic diseases) they cause damage - they reduce the activity of the immune system.

And many diseases associated with alcohol, drug or nicotine poisoning of the body cause immune deficiency.

But there is an immunological deficiency, which has physiological reasons for the development (it develops on its own over time). This happens when immunity decreases in old age.

In connection with the aging of the body, a person develops the phenomenon of immunological deficiency - a syndrome of secondary immune deficiency, which has nothing to do with diseases, but is associated with the aging processes of body cells, including those that form the organs of the immune system. This leads to a situation where immune agents begin to be produced by the organs of the immune system in insufficient quantities and cannot cope with their functions of protecting the body from external infections, allergic or toxic effects. In elderly people, immunity is weakened because the number of immune cells of T-lymphocytes and B-lymphocytes decreases, the chemical activity of immune complexes decreases, which leads to a weakening of cellular and humoral immunity.

In general, aging not only inhibits the immune response to antigens (infections, allergens) that enter the body of an aging person, but also inhibits the work of the immune system over inflammatory processes caused by mechanical trauma, infections and toxic effects (poisoning with chemical compounds). And also immunity weakly inhibits and inhibits proliferative processes in the tissues of the body, caused by tumor cells.

It is precisely because of the insufficiently strong response of the immune system that older people are more susceptible to difficult and long-term diseases of viral, bacterial or fungal origin. The elderly, as people with weakened immunity, are more likely and more severely ill with seasonal infections, are at high risk of bacterial infections attaching to simple respiratory viral infections, have signs of dysbiosis or dysbacteriosis, and risk getting a malignant disease, the development of which can no longer be resisted by the immune system.

All the reasons for the weakening of the immune system during the period of physiological aging of the body automatically rank the elderly as a risk group for almost all types of diseases. This is due to the fact that the immune system inhibits the development of a very wide range of diseases at a young age, but as the body ages, it weakens its resistance to diseases.

These risks must be taken into account when an older person chooses a lifestyle, correlate his health improvement, nutrition and physical activity with the age period of life. In old age, immunity support should be given more attention, vitamin therapy and remedies should be correlated with the current state of the immune system, more often preventive methods of resistance to diseases should be used and supportive immunotherapy with a history of diseases and with potentially possible age-related diseases should be agreed with a doctor.