X Syndrome
Higher levels of fats or lipids in the blood, changing levels of blood sugar and insulin, a tendency toward obesity, and increased central body fat that settles around the waist and abdomen. These changes are so prevalent among older people that they have been given a name, syndrome X.
Neuroendocrine System Changes
Age-related neurological diseases include Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and macular degeneration. All forms of cognitive changes (memory loss and senile dementia), some mental illness fall in this category as well as increased stimulus response times which can make driving and even walking dangerous. Degeneration of neuron systems in the inner ear can make it difficult for older people to maintain their balance. They frequently fall and hurt themselves. Orthopedic injuries associated with falling constitute one of the major maladies of the aged leading to loss of normal functionality and nursing home occupancy.
Cognitive Change (Memory) Steady decline in many cognitive processes are seen across the lifespan, starting in one’s thirties. Research has focused in particular on memory and ageing, and has found decline in many types of memory with ageing, but not in semantic memory or general knowledge such as vocabulary definitions, which typically increases or remains steady. Early studies on changes in cognition with age generally found declines in intelligence in the elderly, but studies were cross-sectional rather than longitudinal and thus results may be an artefact of cohort rather than a true example of decline. Intelligence may decline with age, though the rate may vary depending on the type, and may in fact remain steady throughout most of the lifespan, dropping suddenly only as people near the end of their lives. Individual variations in rate of cognitive decline may therefore be explained in terms of people having different lengths of life. There are changes to the brain: though neuron loss is minor after 20 years of age there is a 10% reduction each decade in the total length of the brain’s myelinated axons.
Immune System Changes
Immune system compromise may result from a hereditary condition (such as inheriting genes for lupus or rheumatoid arthritis), from a disease process such as AIDS, or simply from normal aging. Scientists have long known that immune system’s defense efficiency decline with age. The thymus begins to shrink in adolescence. T-cells and to a lesser degree B-cells, both decline in number and function. The proportion of T-cells that proliferate and function declines as we age. In elderly adults lymphocytes mobilized in response to an infection are likely to be less responsive and less effective than those found in younger adults. In aged people compared to younger ones, fewer antibodies are produced, they are less vigorous and the duration of their response is shorter. So, the immune system of an older adults — including lymphocytes and other types of cells — typically reacts more slowly and weakly. Studies have also shown that in older people, T-cells destroyed by stresses such as irradiation or chemotherapy take longer to renew than they do in younger people. Different interleukins was found at different levels as people age. Interleukin-6 level rise with age while interleukin-2 tend to fall with age. Autoimmunization tend to increase when antibodies react against normal tissue cells from our own body by mistakenly identifying ones own tissues as foreign. Susceptibility to auto-immune diseases like fibromyalgia, lupus, scleroderma and arthritis increases with age. These autoantibodies contribute to causing atherosclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and other pathological conditions. All these decline in immune system function result in increased susceptibility to disease & to abnormalities that result form autoimmune responses.
