Abstract
The aging process is complex and affects a variety of functions, including lower defense capability of the immune system. The immune activity, as most of physiological functions, decreases with age. The principal alterations in humoral immune response are associated with concentration of immunoglobulins, amount and activity of B cells and also the changes in the affinity of the antibodies. The current study aimed to analyze the levels of IgG and IgM antibodies of elderly and young people and to investigate thestatistical differencebetween the groups. The research was a descriptive study and contained young people and elderly from Brazil. The participants of the study were selected randomly through an interview and received medical consultation because patients who presented any pathology that result in commitment of the immune system was excluded. In the present study were evaluated a total of 70 people. After dosing immunoglobulins, a significant decrease of immunoglobulin IgM and an increase of immunoglobulin IgG were observed in elderly. Therefore, we can conclude that this study was important since it was observed that the old individuals has a differences in the levels of IgM and IgG antibodies when it is compared with young people. Based on these facts, we can justify the inability of older peopleto respond adequatelyto new infectionsand their reduced capacity to be immunized against new antigens.
Highlights
The aging process can be defined as the progressive decay of tissue functions
Once it was compared the group of young individuals with the group of the elderly, there was a significant difference in immunoglobulins IgM, where it was found p=0.0098
The immunoglobulin IgG showed no statistically significant difference between the groups, we observed a trend of higher IgG serum levels in elderly patients
Summary
The aging process can be defined as the progressive decay of tissue functions. These changes can be the result of loss of cell functions due to a decrease in cellular division and replication ability [1].The immune activity, as most of physiological functions, decline with age, which has been used as a theoretical basis for explaining the process of aging [2].The adaptive immunity involves interactions between the T and B cell receptor and antibodies with antigenicstructures present in pathogens and cells. The aging process can be defined as the progressive decay of tissue functions. These changes can be the result of loss of cell functions due to a decrease in cellular division and replication ability [1]. The immune activity, as most of physiological functions, decline with age, which has been used as a theoretical basis for explaining the process of aging [2]. T lymphocytes participate in what is named the cell-mediated immune. CD4 lymphocytes have a helper function in immune responses, since the CD8 lymphocytes destroy target cells and in this process and there is a small participation of antibodies [4]
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