Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2012 Jun;133(6):456-66.
doi: 10.1016/j.mad.2012.05.005. Epub 2012 Jun 1.

Frailty and the role of inflammation, immunosenescence and cellular ageing in the very old: cross-sectional findings from the Newcastle 85+ Study

Joanna Collerton  1 , Carmen Martin-Ruiz, Karen Davies, Catharien M Hilkens, John Isaacs, Claire Kolenda, Craig Parker, Michael Dunn, Michael Catt, Carol Jagger, Thomas von Zglinicki, Thomas B L Kirkwood
Affiliations

Frailty and the role of inflammation, immunosenescence and cellular ageing in the very old: cross-sectional findings from the Newcastle 85+ Study

Joanna Collerton et al. Mech Ageing Dev. 2012 Jun.

Abstract

Age-related frailty is an increasing societal challenge with growing emphasis on identifying its underlying pathophysiology and prospects for intervention. We report findings from the first comprehensive study of frailty and biomarkers of inflammation, immunosenescence and cellular ageing in the very old. Using cross-sectional data from the Newcastle 85+ Study (n=845, aged 85), frailty was operationalized by the Fried and Rockwood models and biomarker associations explored using regression analysis. We confirmed the importance of inflammatory markers (IL-6, TNF-alpha, CRP, neutrophils) in frailty in the very old, previously established only in younger-old populations. Limited evidence was found for immunosenescence in frailty; although total lymphocyte count was inversely related, no association was found with the immune risk profile and the inverse associations observed with memory/naïve CD8 T and B cell ratios were in the opposite direction to that expected. We found no association with frailty in the very old for CMV sero-positivity, telomere length, markers of oxidative stress or DNA damage and repair. The Fried and Rockwood frailty models measure different albeit overlapping concepts yet biomarker associations were generally consistent between models. Difficulties in operationalizing the Fried model, due to high levels of co-morbidity, limit its utility in the very old.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

Publication types

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources