an immune explanation for longevity?

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The blue zones are those regions where we find populations with exceptional longevity that science explains essentially by a healthy way of life – in particular diet. But a specific immunity could also be a key factor in this “better aging”.

A blue area well-known, located in Sardinia, encompasses fourteen mountain villages located in the central part of the island, the region of Barbagia. The exceptional longevity of this population would be a relatively recent phenomenonobserved only since the 1900s. The local food pattern and way of life in force for much longer, could therefore not be the only factors explaining the old age that the inhabitants of this region are currently reaching.

A specific herd immunity?

By studying their immune status and Infectious diseases to which they have been exposed, a group of researchers recently issued in a publication published in the journal Frontiers in Aging the assumption that the inhabitants of this blue zone would benefit from a particularly sharp immune profile, of relatively recent appearance, developed during the first half of the XX ^e century.

This profile would be consecutive, according to the authors, to a specific stimulation of the immune system due to various but not very virulent infectious diseases having affected the region, namely malaria and of tuberculosis (until before World War II), and a significant prevalence of Helicobacter pylori and of different parasitic worms.

historically enough spared from systemic inflammation triggers recognized as chronic stress and the Western diet, the residents of this Sardinian blue area would also have developed, thanks to certain specific immune and metabolic modifications, a adaptive anti-inflammatory response able to minimize the impact of these risk factors today.

Which does not mean that these Sardinians show no pro-inflammatory response, but the latter would be better modulated by their more robust immune terrainso that this population (like that of the other blue zones) is found spared or less prone to age-related chronic diseases and autoimmune diseases.

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Bibliographic references

« Does the trained immune system play an important role in the extreme longevity that is seen in the Sardinian blue zone ? », Frontiers in AgingDecember 2022. – doi: 10.3389/fragi.2022.1069415

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