Very small doses of an anti-cancer drug called lenalidomide can rejuvenate the immune system and improve the health of older people, suggests a US study reported online in the journal Clinical Immunology.
As the authors of the study emphasize, the research was conducted in a small group of 13 seniors, so it is difficult to formulate unequivocal conclusions so far. However, if these results are confirmed in the future, it will become feasible to develop an immune-boosting pill in the elderly, researchers speculate.
According to Edward J. Goetzl of the University of California, San Francisco, lead of the latest research, more importance is now attached not to life expectancy, but to how long people can live in good health.
It is known that with age, the function of our tissues and organs systematically deteriorates. The aging process also affects the cells of the immune system – they begin to produce less and less immune proteins, the so-called cytokines that help to defend the body against infections or fight cancer cells. This is accompanied by a general decline in immunity, greater susceptibility to cancer, and overall deterioration of health.
Goetzel’s team came up with the idea to see if any of the drugs available on the market could stop the aging process of the immune system and improve the health of the elderly.
One of the drugs tested was lenalidomide. It is a derivative of thalidomide, which in the late 60s was used by pregnant women as an antiemetic, sedative and analgesic drug. It was withdrawn from the market in 1961 after it was found to have caused serious birth defects in many thousands of newborns. About 10 years ago, thalidomide reverted to medicine in a safer form when it was found to prolong the life of people with multiple myeloma (a malignant tumor in the blood). Its successor – lenalidomide – is much safer, despite its mechanism of action similar to thalidomide. The drug not only directly destroys cancer cells, but also has an immunomodulatory effect, i.e. stimulates the immune system to fight cancer.
The tests were performed in a small group of healthy seniors. For each of them, a younger adult (from 21 to 40 years old) was selected – similar in terms of race, gender and nationality. The drug’s effect on the production of several important cytokines in immune cells called T lymphocytes was analyzed. These were interleukin 2 (IL-2), interferon gamma (IFN-gamma) and interleukin 17 (IL-17).
It turned out that in young people, very low doses of the drug increased IL-2 production up to 17 times and IFN-gamma production threefold. However, in seniors, the production of IL-2 increased up to 120 times, and IFN-gamma six times, and the drug did not inhibit the production of another important cytokine – IL-17.
In the elderly, lenalidomide also had other beneficial effects – it improved the ability of T lymphocytes to migrate and patrol the body for the presence of microbes or diseased cells, and prolonged their survival after fighting infection.
In addition, in the doses used, the drug had a very good safety profile, so scientists hope that – if their observations are confirmed in the future – lenalidomide will be able to be used to strengthen immunity in seniors.
They also remind you that the aging of the immune system is not the same for everyone. In 2009, Goetzl and his team studied a group of 50 elderly people and found that some healthy women aged 70-80 years had levels of IL-2 and INF-gamma similar to those of healthy XNUMX-year-olds.
In turn, in seniors suffering from inflammatory diseases and with weakened immunity, the production of these two compounds was significantly reduced. Changes in the production of cytokines began to be visible in them already in middle age.
If you have the same level of cytokines as your 50-year-old at 25, you’re likely to stay in good health into old age. But if it starts to fall, you have to deal with it somehow. If you had the option to take a small dose of the drug without the risk of side effects, would you not go for it? – comments Goetzl.
His team plans to begin more extensive research in this direction in 2011.
Joanna Morga (PAP)